.i^f. 


i&!^n\vimin  She  WihtAtv 


GIFT  OF 

"y^r^/r;  22/e  yV/?eG./e>r^^ 


10 


THE 


Sequence  of  Tenses  in  Latin 


BY 


WILLIAM  GARDNER  HALE 

Professor  of  the  Latin  Language  and  Literature  in  Cornell  University 


Read  at  the  Meeting  of  the  American  Philological  Association 
HELD  AT  Ithaca,  July  1886 


Reprinted  from  The  American  Journal  of  Philology,  Vol.  VII,  No.  4  and  VoL  Vllf,  No.  i 


BALTIMORE 

PRESS  OF  ISAAC  FRIEDENWALD 
1887 


d'V 


2^  so 

I  2^1 


THE  SEQUENCE  OF  TENSES  IN  LATIN. 

I. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Sequence  of  Tenses  has  two  sides,  a 
theoretical  and  a  pedagogical.  It  is  the  purpose  of  the  present 
and  the  succeeding  paper  to  examine  it  with  some  fullness  on  the 
former  side,  and  briefly  on  the  latter. 

The  doctrine  is  stated  in  various  ways,  which  deal  with  the  sub- 
ject, some  more,  some  less,  externally.  For  an  example  of  the 
former  this  will  serve :  In  subordinate  clauses  the  tenses  of  the 
subjunctive  conform  to  the  following  rule :  principal  tenses  depend 
upon  principal  tenses,  historical  upon  historical  —  a  form  of  state- 
ment which  contents  itself  with  tabulation,  and  does  not  touch 
ground.  Deeper-reaching  is  the  statement  that  the  choice  of  the 
tense  in  each  sentence  is  determined  by  the  tense  of  the  verb  on 
which  the  sentence  in  question  depends. 

A  modified  form  of  the  doctrine  will  be  discussed  later.  At  the 
outset  our  concern  is  with  the  prevailing  view.       ^ 

For  convenience'  sake,  we  may  state  that  view,  with  justice  to 
all  parties  thus  far  included,  in  some  such  way  as  this  :  The  tense 
of  the  subordinate  clause  is  found  to  be  under  the  influence  of  the 
tense  of  the  main  clause,  or,  as  Engelmann  puts  it  (Schneider's 
translation,  p.  308),  "A  subjunctive  clause  is,  in  regard  to  its  tense, 
dependent  on  the  principal  sentence." 

To  this  statement  the  literature  offers  exceptions,  some  speci- 
mens of  which  (mostly  confined  to  clauses  of  result)  are  given  in 
the  grammars.  Our  examination  starts  from  a  scrutiny  of  these 
exceptions,  beginning  with  the  so-called  primary  tenses. 

I.  In  Co7isecutive  Clauses  after  UT. 

a.   The  present : 

Nam  priores  ita  regnarunt  ut  haud  inmerUo  omnes  deinceps 
conditores  partium  certe  urbis,  quas  novas  ipsi  sedes  ab  se  auctae 
multitudmis  addiderunt,  numerentur.  Liv.  2,  i,  2.  For  the  pre- 
decessors of  Tarquin  the  Proud  reigned  in  such  a  manner  that 


4274  la 


.•  ••  • 

•     •  •  •• , 


•  • 


we  very  properly  regard  ihem  all  as  founders  of  the  city,  etc.  The 
verb  regnarunt  belongs,  according  to  the  traditional  chronology, 
to  the  years  753-534  ;  while  the  verb  numerentiir  belongs,  just  as 
an  indicative  manerantur  would,  to  the  age  of  Livy. 

XoX/}j;  uKparov  iioctii  eieci ;  statim  ita  sum  levatus  tit  mihi  deus 
aliquis  medicinam  fecisse  videatur.  Cic.  Fam.  14,  7,  i.  .  .  .  in 
an  histant  I  was  so  relieved  t/iat  the  cure  has  the  look  of  a  miracle. 

In  eodem  {^Luculld)  tanta  prudentia  fuit  in  constituendis  tempe- 
randisque  civitatibus,  taiita  aequitas,  ut  hodie  stet  Asia  Luciilli 
institutis  servandis  et  quasi  vestigiis  persequendis.  Cic.  Acad.  2, 
I,  3.  Lucullus  took  so  long  a  look  ahead  in  establishing  forms  of 
government,  and  had  such  a  sense  for  justice,  that  to-day  Asia 
stands  by  holding  to  his  arrangements  and  following,  so  to  speak, 
in  his  tracks. 

.  .  .  ifi  provincia  Sicilia,  quain  iste  per  trienniwn  ita  vexavit  ac 
perdidit  ut  ca  restiiui  in  antiquum  statuni  nullo  modo  possit,  vix 
autein  per  multos  annos  imiocentisque  praeiores  aliqua  ex  parte 
recreari  aliquando  posse  videatur.  Cic.  Verr.  Act.  Pr.  4,  12. 
For  three  years  this  fellow  so  harried  and  ruined  Sicily  that  there 
is  no  possible  way  of  restoriiig  her  to  her  old  condition,  etc. 

The  comment  of  Allen  and  Greenough  (p.  201)  upon  the  pas- 
sage is  as  follows  :  "  Here  the  present  is  ut-ed  in  describing  a  state 
of  things  actually  existing  " ;  which  of  course  means  at  the  time 
when  Cicero  made  the  speech.  The  modally  dependent /<?>5-^//  and 
videatur,  then,  mean,  so  far  as  tense  alone  goes,  precisely  the  same 
thing  as  would /<?/^^/  and  videtur.  Barring  the  formal  expression 
of  degree  and  result,  Cicero  might  equally  well  have  said  Siciliam 
iste  per  triennium  vexavit  ac  perdidit ;  neque  ea  restiiui  in  anti- 
quum statum  ullo  modo  potest,  etc.  We  may  then  state  as  a 
formula  for  this  particular  case:  mood  apart,  possit :=. potest, 
V ide alter -=,  videtur.  And,  governed  by  this  and  an  abundance  of 
similar  cases,  we  are  obliged,  whatever  our  prepossessions  may  be, 
to  lay  down  the  statement  that  after  secondary  tenses  the  present 
subjunctive  in  consecutive  ^//-clauses  expresses,  shows  that  the 
speaker  means,  time  present  to  his  speaking  ;  that,  in  other  words, 
the  present  subjunctive  in  consecutive  2^/-sentences  after  a  secondary 
verb  is  wholly  independent  of  any  Sequence  of  Tenses. 

But  if  the  present  has  this  power  after  secondary  tenses,  it 
clearly  cannot  be  asserted  not  to  have  it  after  primary  tenses,  as 
for  example  in  the  following :  Nam  sociorum  auxilia  propter 
acerbitatem  atque  iniurias  imperii  nostri  aut  ita  imbecilla  sunt 


ut  non  muUum  nos  hivare  possint,  aut  ita  alienata  a  nobis  tit 
neque  exspectandicin  ab  its  neque  com^nittendutn  Us  quicqua7n 
videatur.  Cic.  Fam.  15,  i,  5.  It  is  idle  to  hold  that  the  present 
subjunctives  of  posse  and  videri,  though  able  to  express  a  certain 
temporal  idea  in  the  teeth  of  the  Sequence  of  Tenses,  as  in  the 
former  example,  have  not  the  ability  to  express  the  same  meaning 
in  ordinary  use,  as  in  the  latter  example — that,  in  other  words, 
they  can  by  some  mysterious  accession  of  power  set  the  law  at 
defiance  and  become  tense-expressing,  having,  nevertheless,  no 
power  to  express  tense. 

On  this  point — this  argument  from  the  power  clearly  seen  to  be 
present  in  the  tense  in  the  unusual  combination  (or,  in  common 
phraseology,  in  the  exception)  to  the  meaning  of  the  tense  in  all 
constructions  of  the  kind,  whether  unusual  or  usual — the  whole 
matter  hinges.     I  must  therefore  insist  upon  it  and  emphasize  it. 

We  find,  in  consecutive  2^/-sentences,  the  present  subjunctive  in 
combination  with  a  preceding  present,  etc.,  and  in  combination 
with  a  preceding  aorist,  etc.  Now,  how  much  do  we  absolutely 
know  of  the  force  of  the  subjunctive  present  in  any  one  of  these 
result-clauses  ?  We  absolutely  know  that  in  one  of  the  combina- 
tions it  has  the  force,  conveys  the  meaning,  of  the  present — a 
meaning  precisely  the  same,  mood  apart,  as  that  of  the  present 
indicative.  Next,  is  there  anything  to  detain  us  fivom  supposing 
(as  we  should  at  once  naturally  proceed  to  do)  that  this  mean- 
ing, which  indubitably  exists  in  the  one  set  of  cases,  exists  in: 
the  other?  Is  there  anything  to  indicate  that  the  speaker, 
using  precisely  the  same  expression  in  the  two  sets  of  cases, 
meant  one  thing  in  the  one  set,  and  another  thing  in  the  other? 
Nothing  whatever.  Very  good.  The  rational  interpretation  of 
the  entire  field  of  phenomena  accordingly  is  that  the  speaker 
attaches  a  present  result,  now  to  a  cause  temporally  near,  now  to 
a  cause  remote.  But  why  (for  we  are  naturally  curious  to  under- 
stand the  one  point  remaining)  do  we  find,  as  we  read  Latin 
literature,  that  there  are  a  great  many  examples  of  a  present  result 
attached  to  a  cause  temporally  near,  and  comparatively  few  exam- 
ples of  a  present  result  attached  to  a  remote  cause  ?  The  reason 
is  the  simple  fact,  familiar  to  everybody,  that  very  few  results  abide 
long,  or,  at  any  rate,  are  appreciated  as  long-abiding.  There  are, 
in  the  year  1887,  abiding  results  of  the  victory  of  the  Greeks  over 
Xerxes,  and  we  may  therefore  say  at  ihe  battle  of  Salamis  the 
Greeks  routed  their  enemies^  in  consequence  of  which  victory  our 


^modern  civilizaHon  is  essentially  Greek,  not  Oriental ;  but  as  we 
read  Greek  and  Roman  history,  or  any  other,  we  find  that  results 
are  mostly  immediately  attendant  upon  their  causes,  and  have  no 
visible  effect  upon  the  state  of  things  at  the  time  when  the  history 
was  written ;  and,  consequently,  after  the  expression  of  a  past 
cause  we  find  a  great  many  expressions  of  a  past  result,*  and  very 
few  expressions  of  a  present  result.  All  this  falls  in  perfectly  with 
the  way  things  are  in  this  world.  But  to  set  up  a  theory  which, 
to  apply  it  to  perfectly  analogous  phenomena  in  English,  would 
maintain  that  I  say  "  am  "  in  the  sentence  /  hurt  my  leg  badly  tefi 
years  ago,  so  that  /am  finable  to  walk,  because  I  mean  now,  while 
in  the  sentence  /  have  hurt  my  leg  badly,  so  that  /am  unable  to 
walk,  I  don't  say  ''am''  because  I  mean  now,  but  say  it  (not 
meaning  anything  temporal  by  the  word  itself)  because  my  mind 
is  under  the  control  of  the  tense  of  the  main  verb — to  set  up  such 
a  theory  as  this  is  to  see  things  only  as  they  appeared  in  the  early 
part  of  the  present  century,  in  the  world  of  certain'  grammarians 

'  The  history  of  the  common  use  of  the  imperfect  to  indicate  results  seen  in 
temporal  connection  with  the  past  will  be  given  later. 

2  Some  of  the  grammarians  of  the  time  dealt  with  the  matter  in  a  very  reason- 
able way.  Kriiger,  for  example  (Untersuchungen  aus  dem  Gebiete  der  lat. 
Sprache,  II  Theil,  1821),  has  an  admirable  statement  of  the  force  and  uses  of 
the  subjunctive  tenses  ;  and  though  in  his  grammar  as  edited  by  Grotefend  in 
1842  (I  have  not  his  own  edition  at  hand)  the  formulae  in  fashion  at  the 
present  day  are  given,  yet  the  true  grounds  of  the  phenomena  are  rightly 
sketched  in  §617,  note  i.  The  doctrine  of  Wenck  (Lat.  Sprachlehre,  1798, 
§§26,  165-9,  ^"^  particularly  §168  with  note)  is  so  much  juster  than  that  of  the 
school-grammars  of  the  present  day  that  I  must  allow  myself  to  quote  a  few 
lines,  with  italics  of  my  own:  "  Doch  muss  bei  dieser  Kegel  auf  die  eigentliche 
Bedeutung  der  Temportim^  folglich  auf  die  Sache  selbst,  Riicksicht  genommen 
werden.  Es  versteht  sich  z.  B.  von  selbst,  dass,  wenn  nach  einem  Praesens 
wieder  ein  Praesens  folgen  soil,  von  einer  gegenwartigen  Sache  geredet  werden 
mlisse."  That  which,  as  Wenck  correctly  says,  versteht  sich  von  selbst,  has  un- 
happily, through  the  pedagogical  stiffening  and  congealing  of  modes  of  expres- 
sion in  the  grammars,  become  a  matter  which  we  of  to-day  have  to  set  ourselves 
to  prove  by  formal  reasoning. 

It  is  interesting  and  cheering  to  note  that  we  have  quite  outlived  a  "  common 
rule"  of  a  similar  nature,  which  had  some  vogue  at  the  time  when  the  doctrine 
of  the  Sequence  was  growing  up,  namely,  that  "  these  coujunctions  "  {et,  ac,  atque, 
etc.) '^ connect  the  same  tenses''';  a  doctrine  which  Schelling  (Walker's  transla- 
tion, 1825,  II,  p.  185)  sets  himself  to  controvert,  taking  the  very  natural  ground 
that  they  "  connect  the  same  tenses  only  so  far  as  when  the  same  tense  is  in- 
tended " — a  ground  directly  applicable,  mutatis  mutandis,  to  the  doctrine  of  the 
Sequence. 


5 

who  failed  to  feel  the  play  of  human  thought,  and  saw  their  phe- 
nomena only  by  inventories.^ 

Further,*  such  a  theory  lands  one  at  once  in  a  plain  absurdity. 
Let  us  apply  it  to  the  expression  of  the  results  of  the  administra- 
tion of  Asia  under  Lucullus,  taking  Cicero's  word,  in  the  example 
above,  for  the  character  of  that  administration.  It  lasted,  we  will 
say,  from  the  year  74  to  the  year  66.  Cicero  wrote  the  Academica 
21  years  later.  The  advocate  of  the  Sequence  of  Tenses,  then, 
is  bound  to  hold  that  in  the  year  45  the  present  tense  stet  was  in 
itself  competent,  just  as  stat  would  have  been  in  the  paratactical 
construction,  to  express  the  then-existing  result  of  Lucullus's 
activity  21  to  29  years  earlier,  but  that  on  the  day  following 
Lucullus's  return  in  66  the  very  same  word  would  have  been 
incompetent  to  do  anything  of  the  kind  !  The  tense,  it  would 
appear,  must  be  put  away  and  allowed,  like  new  wine,  to  ferment, 
before  it  can  have  any  power  to  express  itself.  But  such  a  view, 
to  speak  very  temperately,  seems  to  a  plain  mind  a  more  difficult 
doctrine  than  the  doctrine  that  the  tense  has  everywhere,  in  a 
given  construction,  the  meaning  which  it  is  absolutely  known  to 
have,  in  that  construction,  in  a  good  many  cases. 

We  shall  therefore  have  to  amplify  our  former  statement,  and  to 
lay  down  the  following:  In  consecutive  sentences  after  ut,  and 
after  all  tenses,  whether  secondary  or  primar}^,  the  present  tense 
expresses  time  present  to  the  speaker;  or,  in  other  words,  the 
present  tense  of  the  subjunctive  in  consecutive  2^/-sentences  is 
altogether  free  from,  wholly  independent  of,  in  no  way  concerned 
even  with  the  existence  of,  the  doctrine  of  the  Sequence  of  Tenses. 

b.   The  perfect  definite  : 

Quamquam  enijn  adeo  excellebat  Aristides  absiineniia,  ut  untis 
post  hominum  memoriam,  quern  quidem  7ios  audierwtus,  co- 
gnomine  Justus  sit  appellatus,  tamen  a  Themisiocle  collabef actus 
testula  ilia  exsilio  decern  annorum  multatus  est.  Nep.  Arist.  i,  2. 
For,  though  Aristides  was  so  pre-eminent  for  his  respect  for  other 
7nen's  rights  that  he  is  the  only  man  who  has  been  named  the  Just, 
yet  he  was  ostracized,  etc. 

Ardebat   autem   cupiditate   dicendi  sic,  ut  in   nullo   umqtiam 

'  Hiibner's  general  bibliography  of  the  subject  (Grundriss,  II  Theil,  §  39) 
may  be  interestingly  supplemented,  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  contemporary 
of  the  rise  of  the  doctrine,  by  a  list  of  titles  given  by  Stallbaum  in  his  edition 
of  Ruddimann's  Institutiones  Grammaticae  Latinae  (Leipzig,  1823,  Vol.  II, 
P-  341). 


Jlagrantms  stiidmm  viderim.  Cic.  Brut.  88,  302.  He  {Hor(ensius) 
was  possessed  with  such  a  passion  for  speaking  that  /have  never 
seen  in  anybody  a  more  burning  ardor. 

In  these  examples  the  perfect  subjunctive  is  used,  though  after 
an  imperfect,  as  a  perfect  definite,  meaning,  so  far  as  tense  is  con- 
cerned, precisely  the  same  thing  as  would  the  perfect  indicative. 
Barring  the  formal  subordination  of  result  to  cause,  Cicero  might 
have  said,  with  precisely  the  same  temporal  force  :  Horte?isiiis 
ardebat  dicendi  cupiditate ;  nee  in  ullo  umquam  flagrantius 
studium  vidi. 

We  must  therefore  lay  down  the  statement  that  in  consecutive 
^^/-sentences  after  secondary  tenses  the  perfect  definite  of  the  sub- 
junctive has  a  time-expressing  power  of  its  own  —  is  under  no  law 
of  a  Sequence  of  Tenses. 

But  if  the  perfect  definite  has  this  power  after  secondary  tenses, 
then,  by  the  same  reasoning  as  in  the  case  of  the  present  above, 
it  is  idle  to  maintain  that  it  has  not  the  same  power  after  primary 
tenses,  as  in  Cic.  Div.  in  Caecil.  1,1:  Si  quis  vestrum,  indices, 
forte  7niratur  me,  qui  tot  ajinos  in  causis  iudiciisqiie  publicis  ita 
sim  versatus  ut  defenderim  niultos,  laeserim  71  niine^n,  etc.  The 
perfect  subjunctive  (^defenderim,  laeserim)  is  here  doing  after  a 
primary  tense  just  what  we  saw  it  doing  above  after  secondary 
tenses,  and  to  grant  a  power  of  expression  in  the  former  case 
while  denying  it  in  the  latter  is,  as  we  have  seen,  to  set  up 
distinctions  founded  on  no  differences,  and  involving  gross 
absurdities. 

We  shall  accordingly  be  obliged  a  second  time  to  amplify  a 
statement,  and  to  lay  down  the  following :  In  consecutive  ut-sen- 
tences,  and  after  all  tenses,  whether  primary  or  secondary,  the 
perfect  definite  of  the  subjunctive  conveys  the  idea  that  the  act 
indicated  by  it  is  completed  at  the  time  of  speaking ;  or,  in  other 
words,  the  perfect  definite  is  altogether  free  from,  wholly  inde- 
pendent of,  in  no  way  concerned  with  the  existence  of,  the  doctrine 
of  the  Sequence  of  Tenses. 

c.   The  aorist : 

Barbarus  .  .  .  adeo  angiisto  mart  conflixit  ut  eius  multitudo 
navium  expiicari  non  potuerit.  Nep.  Them.  4,  4.  Xerxes  en- 
gaged his  enemy  in  such  a  narroiv  strait  that  he  could  not  bring 
the  great  mass  of  his  ships  into  actio?i. 

XXV.  indices  ita  fortes  tamen  fuerunt  utsiwimo  proposito  periculo 
vet  perire  maluerint  qnam  perdere  omnia.     Cic.  Att.  i,  16,  5. 


Twenty-five  of  the  judges ^  however y  were  so  bold  that  they  pre- 
ferred the  risk  of  utter  destructioji  to  the  risk  of  losing  all. 

The  phenomenon  is  a  very  familiar  one.  The  aorist  is  used  in 
precisely  the  same  temporal  sense  as  that  which  is  conveyed  by 
the  aorist  indicative. 

We  must  therefore  lay  down  the  statement  that  after  secondary 
tenses  the  aorist  subjunctive  in  consecutive  2//-clauses  expresses, 
mood  apart,  the  same  idea  as  the  aorist  indicative  —  has,  in  other 
words,  a  power  of  its  own,  and  is  under  no  law  of  a  Sequence  of 
Tenses. 

The  idea  to  be  conveyed  by  an  aorist  of  result  after  a  primary 
tense  can  exist  only  when  the  main  verb  states  a  cause  that  always 
exists  or  has  always  thus  far  existed,  and  the  result-clause  cites  an 
historical  case  illustrating  the  working  of  that  cause.  Such  an 
example  (which  might  be  illustrated  in  English  by  the  sentence 
The  lust  of  power  is  so  great  that  even  the  Fouyider  of  Rome  slew 
his  own  brother)  naturally  occurs  rarely,  and  I  have  had  the  bad 
luck  to  lose  one  which  I  had  found.  Still,  it  is  clear  that,  in  the 
few  examples  that  may  occur,  the  force  of  the  aorist  in  consecutive 
^/-clauses  is  the  same,  mood  apart,  as  that  of  the  aorist  indicative. 
And  the  omission  of  an  example  of  this  kind  cannot  count  against' 
my  case,  because  such  examples  are  recognized  by  the  law  of  the 
Sequence  as  regular. 

We  must  therefore  again  amplify  what  we  have  said,  and  assert 
that  in  consecutive  2//-clauses,  no  matter  whether  after  secondary 
or  after  primary  tenses,  the  aorist  subjunctive  conveys,  of  its  own 
power,  an  idea  of  time  (the  same,  mood  apart,  as  that  of  the  aorist 
indicative),  and  is,  consequently,  under  no  law  of  a  Sequence  of 
Tenses ;  and  further,  summing  up  what  has  been  shown  under  a, 
b,  and  c,  we  must  lay  down  the  larger  statement  that  in  consecu- 
tive 2/^clauses  the  present,  the  perfect,  and  the  aorist  have  in 
themselves  a  tense-expressing  force — owe  their  use,  not  to  the 
dictation  of  a  preceding  verb,  but  to  their  own  power  to  convey 
the  temporal  meaning  which  the  speaker  has  in  his  mind — in  other 
words,  are  entirely  unconcerned  with  any  law  of  the  Sequence  of 
Tenses. 

2.  In  Consecutive  Relative  Sentences, 

a.   The  present : 

Erat  no7i  studiorum  tantum  verum  etiam  studiosorum  amanlis- 
simus^  ac  prope  cotidie  ad  audiendos  quos  tunc  ego  frequentabam 
Quintilianum,  Niceten  Sacerdotem  ventitabat,  vir  alioqui  clarus  et 


8 

gravis  et  qui prodesse  filio  memoria  sui  debeat.  Plin.  Ep.  6,  6,  3. 
He  was  extremely  fond,  not  only  of  literary  pursuits  but  of  literary 
people,  and  used  to  go  nearly  every  day  to  the  lectures  of  Quin- 
tilian  and  Nicetes  Sacerdos  {with  whom  /was  at  that  time  taking 
courses')— a  man  of  distinction  and  weight,  who  ought  to  be  of 
assistance  to  his  son  through  the  memories  he  has  left  behind  him. 

Note  that  after  the  tenses  of  a  past  activity,  erat,  frequeniabam, 
veniitabat,  the  characterizing  clause  expresses  with  perfect  ease 
and  certainty,  merely  through  the  force  of  the  tense,  a  now-existing 
state  of  affairs.     Debeat  is  simply  a  subjunctive  debet. 

Hi  fere  fuerunt  Grace  ae  gentis  duces  qui  memoria  digni  vide- 
antur,  praeter  reges.  Nep.  de  Reg.  i.  These,  we  may  say,  were 
the  generals  of  the  Greek  race,  outside  of  royalty,  who  seem  to  be 
worthy  of  a  place  in  history. 

Examples  of  this  sort  could  easily  be  produced  by  scores,  but 
our  limits  of  space  make  economy  necessary.'  Furthermore,  I  shall 
not,  after  the  present  set,  take  space  to  treat  present,  perfect,  and 
aorist  separately,  nor  to  treat  imperfect  and  pluperfect  separately, 
since  that  which  holds  for  a  part  of  a  set  holds  for  the  rest  also ; 
and  I  shall  no  longer  repeat  the  arguments  by  which,  under  i,  I 
showed  that  a  temporal  power  conceded  to  a  primary  tense  after  a 
secondary  tense  must  also  be  conceded  to  it  after  a  primary,  and 
vice  versa. 

We  must  then  lay  down  the  statement  that  after  all  tenses, 
whether  primary  or  secondary,  the  present  of  the  subjunctive  in 
consecutive  relative  clauses  conveys  of  itself  the  force  of  a  present; 
or,  in  other  words,  the  present  subjunctive  in  these  sentences  is  in 
no  way  concerned  with  the  existence  of  a  doctrine  of  the  Sequence 
of  Tenses. 

b.   The  perfect  definite : 

Quis  tum  fuit  Syracusis  quin  audierit,  quin  sciat  has  Timar- 
chidi pactiones  sepulturae  cum  vivis  etiam  illis  esse  factas  9  Cic. 
Verr.  5,  45,  120.  Who  that  was  at  Syracuse  at  the  time  has  not 
heard,  does  7iot  know,  etc. 

^  The  giving  of  an  abundance  of  examples  would  have  the  good  effect  of 
showing,  with  a  cumulative  influence  upon  the  reader's  mind,  the  entire  free- 
dom with  which,  in  the  great  mass  of  constructions  at  any  rate,  the  Roman 
said  in  his  subordinate  verb  that  which  would  express  his  meaning,  without 
paying  any  consideration  whatever  to  anything  that  he  had  previously  said  in 
another  verb.  In  this  part  of  my  paper,  and  in  many  other  parts,  I  regret  that 
the  case  to  be  presented,  in  the  face  of  the  traditional  doctrine,  must  be  so 
curtly  stated. 


In  consecutive  relative  clauses,  consequently,  the  perfect  definite, 
whether  after  secondary  or  after  primary  tenses,  is  in  no  way  the 
product  of  the  dictation  of  a  preceding  verb,  but  has  in  itself  tem- 
poral expression— in  other  words,  is  unconcerned  with  the  existence 
of  the  doctrine  of  the  Sequence  of  Tenses. 

c.   The  aorist : 

Nulla  domus  in  Sicilia  locuples  fuit,  ubi  iste  no?i  texirinum 
instituerit.  Cic.  Verr.  4,  26,  58.  There  wasn't  a  well-to-do  house 
in  Sicily  where  he  didn't  set  people  to  weaving. 

Fuerunt  quos  fames  magis  guam  fama  commoverit.  Cic.  Att. 
I,  16,  5.  There  were  some  over  whom  famine  had  more  power 
than  fame. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Sequence  of  Tenses,  therefore,  has  nothing 
to  do  with  the  aorist  subjunctive  in  consecutive  relative  sentences. 

From  the  results  of  our  examination  under  «,  b,  and  <:,  then,  we 
learn  that  in  consecutive  relative  clauses,  after  whatsoever  tenses, 
the  present,  the  perfect  definite,  and  the  aorist  have  in  themselves 
the  power  of  temporal  expression ;  and  that,  consequently,  the 
doctrine  of  the  Sequence  of  Tenses  is  not  for  them. 

3.  In  Causal  Sentences. 

Turn  ille  **  locabatur,"  inquit,  ''Catulus,  praesertim  cum  ita 
dicat  ipse  ut  a^nbrosia  alendus  videatur.^'  Ci«j.  de  Or.  2,  57,  234. 
Then  spoke  up  Crassus :  '' Catulus  vf2iS  certainly  joking  when  he 
said  that,  for  he  himself  is  such  ayi  orator  that  it  seems  as  if  he 
must  live  on  a  diet  sent  from  Heaven  ^ 

Non  ego  ig7iar2is  quid  responsurus  facturusve  esses  quaesivi, 
quippe  cujii  prae  te  feras  temptare  te  magis  qua^n  coyisulere  se7ia- 
tum.  Liv.  28,  45,  3-4.  In  asking  my  question  I  was  not  in 
doubt  what  your  answer  and  your  course  of  action  would  be,  for 
you  show  very  plainly  that  you  are  tryi72g  to  find  out  the  feeling  of 
the  Senate  instead  of  formally  asking  its  vote. 

Sed  nee  eiusmodi  est  ut  a  pluribus  confusa  videatur  ;  unus  enim 
sonus  est  totius  oratiotiis  et  idem  stilus ;  nee  de  Persia  reticuisset 
Gracchus,  cum  ei  Fanjiius  de  Menelao  Maratheno  et  de  ceteris 
obiecisset,  praesertim  cum  Fannius  numqua^n  sit  habitus  elinguis. 
Cic.  Brut.  26,  100.  (An  allusion  has  been  made  to  the  author- 
ship of  the  Oratio  de  Sociis  ascribed  to  Fannius,  but  thought  by 
some  to  have  been  written  by  Persius.)  But  it  hasn't  the  look  of 
a  co7nposite  ;  for  the  whole  oration  rings  like  one  and  keeps  up  a 
uniform  style  ;  nor  would  Gracchus  have  held  his  tongue  in  regard 


lO 

to  Persius  when  Fannius  gibed  him  about  Mefielaus  of  Mara- 
this,  to  say  nothing  of  the  still  stronger  consider atio7i  that  Fannius 
has  7iever  been  regarded  as  a  man  who  couldn't  speak. 

Fuit  eniyn  inirijica  vigilantia,  qui  suo  toto  consulatu  soninuni 
non  viderit.  Cic.  Fam.  7,  30,  i.  He  was  a  tremendously  wide- 
atvake  ma7i,for  during  his  entire  consulship  he  didn't  know  what 
sleep  was. 

Ille  vero  ante  decemviros  non  fuit,  quippe  qui  aedilis  curulis 
fuerit,  qui  magistratus  multis  annis  post  decemviros  institutus  est. 
Cic.  Att.  6,  I,  8.  He  didn't  live  before  the  decemvirs,  for  he  was 
curule  aedile,  and  that  office  was  not  created  till  long  after  the 
time  of  the  decemvirate.  The  tense  is  as  free  in  fuerit  as  in  histi- 
tutus  est. 

The  primary  tenses  of  the  subjunctive  in  causal  sentences,  then, 
are  in  themselves  expressive,  and  are  exempt  from  any  law  of  a 
Sequence  of  Tenses. 

4.  In  Concessive  Sentences. 

Nam  cum  apud  Graecos  antiquissimum  e  doctis  genus  sit  pocta- 
rum,  si  qtiidem  Homer  us  fuit  et  Hesiodus  ante  Roma?n  conditam, 
Archilochus  regnante  Roniulo,  serius  poetic  am  nos  accepimus. 
Annis  fere  CCCCCX post  Romam  conditajn  Livius  fabulam  dedit 
C.  Claudio  Caeci  filio  M.  Tuditaiio  consulibus  anno  ajite  natum 
Ennium  :  sero  igitur  a  nostris  poetae  vel  cogniti  vel  recepti.  Cic. 
Tusc.  I,  I,  3.  Though  in  Greece  poets  are  the  oldest  class  of 
literary  men  .  .  .  we  Romans  took  to  poetry  later.  .  .  .  So  our 
nation  either  became  acquainted  with  the  poets  late,  or  took  to 
them  late.     Sit  is  simply  a  subjunctive  est. 

Nam  primum,  id  quod  dixi,  cum  in  ceteris  coloniis  Hviri  appel- 
lentur,  hi  se  praetores  appellari  volebant.  Cic.  Leg.  Agr.  2,  34, 
93.  For,  to  begin  with,  though  in  all  other  colonies  S2ich  officers 
are  called  duimiviri,  these  people  were  desirous  of  being  called 
praetors. 

Nam  hoc  toto  proelio,  cum  ab  hora  septima  ad  vesperum  pug- 
natum  sit,  aversum  hostem  videre  7iemo  potuit.  Caes.  B.  G.  i,  26, 
I.  Though  the  battle  lasted  ////  eve7ii7ig,  7iobody  could  catch  sight 
of  a7i  e7iemys  back. 

Quae  cum  077t7iia  facta  sint,  ta7nen  unam  sola77i  scitote  esse 
civitate77t  Mamerti7iajn  quae  publice  legatos  qui  istiwi  laudarent 
miserit.  Cic.  Verr.  2,  2,  5,  13.  Though  all  this  was  done,  stilly 
you  77tust  under  stand y  there  is  only  one  state  that  sent  a  delegation 
to  whitezvash  him. 


II 

The  primary  tenses  of  the  subjunctive  In  concessive  sentences, 
then,  are  In  themselves  expressive,  and  are  exempt  from  any  law 
of  a  Sequence  of  Tenses. 

5.  Li  the  Indirect  Discourse,  etc, 

Haec  in  omnibus  Ebtiromini  partibus  gerebanttir,  diesque 
adpetebat  sepfimus,  quern  ad  diem  Caesar  ad  i'tnpedinienta  legio- 
ne?nque  reverti  constiiuerat.  Hie,  quantum  in  bello  for  tuna  possit 
et  quanios  adferat  casus,  cognosci  potuit.  Caes.  B.  G.  6,  35,  1-2. 
.  .  .  at  this  juncture  it  was  possible  to  recognize  what  a  power 
Fortune  Is  in  war,  and  what  ups  and  downs  she  brings  about.  The 
reflection  is  put  as  a  general  one,  called  up  by  the  recital  of  the 
story.     Adferat  Is  simply  a  subjunctive  adfert. 

Quamobrem  aute^n  in  hoc  provinciali  dclectu  spem  habeatis 
aliquam,  causa  7iulla  est :  neque  multi  sunt  et  diffugiunt  qui  stmt 
metu  oblatu  ;  et,  quod  genus  hoc  militum  sit,  iudicavit  vir  fortis- 
simus  M.  Bibulus  in  Asia,  qui,  cum  vos  ei  permisissetis,  dilectum 
habere  noluerit.  Cic.  Fam.  15,  i,  5.  There  is  710  reason  for 
your  basing  any  hopes  on  the  levy  in  this  proviiice  :  there  are  few 
men  here,  and  the  few  that  there  are  ru7i  away  as  soon  as  they 
meet  with  anything  to  be  afraid  of ;  07i  the  questio7i  what  kind  of 
soldiers  they  make,  Bibulus  expressed  his  opinion  iii  refusing  to 
hold  a  levy,  etc.  Sit  is  a  general  present  precisely  parallel  to  szpit 
and  diffugiu7it,  differing  from  them  in  no  respect  whatever  except 
in  that  it  is  put  indirectly. 

Quae  quantimi  in  provincia  valeant,  vellem  expertus  essem,  sed 
tame7i  suspicor.  Cic.  Fam.  13,  6a,  4.  /could  wish  /had  learned 
fro7n  experience  hoiv  far  these  things  count  iyi  a  provi7ice,  but  even 
as  it  is  I  have  my  suspicions. 

Docui,  cum  desertum  esse  dicat  vadimo7iiu7}i,  om7iino  vadi- 
mo7iiur}t  7iullum  fulsse  :  quo  die  hunc  sibi  pro77iisisse  dicat,  eo  die 
7ie  Rornae  quide77i  eum  fulsse.  Cic.  Quint.  28,  86.  /  showed  thai, 
whereas  he  claims  that  the  recognizance  had  been  forfeited,  there 
never  was  aiiy  recog7iiza7ice  in  the  case:  that  07i  the  day  on  which 
he  claims  that  Quinctius  gave  it,  Quinctius  waswV  even  i7i  town, 
Dicat  (the  second)  differs  from  dicit  only  in  being  indirectly  put. 

Postea  recitavi  edictum,  quod  aperte  do)7ii7t7im  de  praedio  det7'udi 
vetaret :  i7i  quo  constltit  Naeviti7n  ex  edicto  7ion  possedisse,  C2im 
confiteretur  ex  praedio  vi  detrustmi  esse  Qui7ictiu77i.  077i7iino 
autem  bona  posse ssa  7ion  esse  constltui,  quod  bo7ioru77i  possessio 
spectetur  7i07i  in  aliqua  parte,  sed  in  U7iiversis,  quae  teneri  et 


12 

possideri possint.  Cic.  Quinct.  29,  89.  Next  I  x^2.^  the  prohibitory 
edict .  .  .  /established  the  point  that  his  goods  had  not  been  in  pos- 
session, for  the  reason  that  the  test  0/  possession  0/  goods  X\es  i?i 
the  field  of  the  entire  property,  not  a  part  of  it,  etc.  The  quod 
spectetur  is  given  as  a  universal  principle,  applied  to  a  particular 
case  in  the  past. 

Audire  vie  meniini  ex  senioribus  visum  saepius  inter  manus 
Pisonis  libellum,  quern  ipse  7ion  vulgaverit.  Tac.  Ann.  3,  16,  i. 
/  remember  hearing  from  men  older  than  myself  that  Piso  was 
seen  a  number  of  times  to  have  a  note-book  in  his  hands,  which  he 
did  7iot  make  public.  Vulgaverit  is  simply  an  indirect  vulgavit, 
with  precisely  the  same  temporal  force,  the  difference  concerning 
nothing  but  the  mood. 

Cur  abstinuerit  spectaculo  ipse,  varie  trahebant.  Tac.  Ann.  i, 
76,  6.  To  the  question  why  he  stayed  away  from  the  show  hifn- 
self,  people  at  the  time  gave  all  sorts  of  answers  (as  if  we  should  put 
it  why  did  he  stay  away  f  that  was  the  question^. 

Quae  fuerit  hesterno  die  C.  Pompei  gravitas  in  dicendo  .  .  . 
perspicua  admiratione  declarari  videbatur.  Cic.  Balb.  i.  What 
a  weighty  affair  Pompeys  speech  of  yesterday  was,  was  clearly 
shown  at  the  time  by  the  evident  admiration  of  his  hearers.  Mood 
apart,  the  tenses  mean  the  same  as  if  Cicero  had  written  gravis 
fuit  hesterno  die  or  alio  C.  Pompei,  ut  perspicua  admiratione 
declarari  videbatur. 

Id  quantae  saluti  fuerit  universae  Graeciae,  bello  cognitum  est 
Persico.  Nep.  Them.  2,  4.  What  a  salvation  it  was  to  the  whole 
of  Greece  was  seen  in  the  Persian  war  (=r  saluti  fuit,  ut  bello  cogni- 
tum est  Persico). 

In  the  indirect  discourse,  etc.,  then,  the  primary  tenses  of  the 
subjunctive  convey  a  temporal  meaning,  and  are  under  no  law  of 
any  Sequence  of  Tenses. 

6.   In  Conditions. 

Si  hodie  bella  sint,  quale  Etruscum  fuit,  cum  Porsinna  lani- 
culum  insedit,  quale  Gallicum  modo,  cum  praeter  Capitoliurn 
atque  arcein  omnia  haec  hostium  erant,  et  consulatum  cum  hoc  M. 
Furio  et  quolibet  alio  ex  patribus  L.  ille  Sextius  peteret,  pos- 
setisne  ferre  Sextium  hand  pro  dubio  coyisulem  esse,  Camillum 
de  repulsa  dimicare?  Liv.  6,  40,  17.  If  i?i  our  own  times  there 
should  be  wars  like  the  Etruscaii .  .  .  or  the  Gallic  .  .  . ,  and  Sextius 
were  running  for  the  consulship,  could  you  endure,  etc.  ?     The 


13 

first  condition  looks  to  an  entirely  possible  contingency,  and  the 
second,  with  its  conclusion,  to  something  hardly  conceivable. 

The  whole  set  of  so-called  mixed  conclusions  and  conditions 
containing  a  secondary  conclusion  falls  under  this  head.  For  it  is 
a  part  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Sequence  that  the  imperfect  and  plu- 
perfect subjunctive  in  conclusions  contrary  to  fact  are  regularly 
followed, by  the  secondary  tenses. 

The  primary  tenses  of  the  subjunctive,  then,  in  conditional 
sentences,  are  in  themselves  expressive,  and  are  exempt  from  any 
Law  of  a  Sequence. 

7.   In  Conclusions^  Softened  Statements,  etc, 

Sed  post  aliquanto  propter  has  amplitudines  sepulcrorum,  quas 
in  Ceramico  vidimus,  lege  sanctum  est  ne  quis  sepulcrum  faceret 
operosius  quam  quod  decem  homines  effecerint  triduo.  Cic.  Leg. 
2,  26,  64.  But  somewhat  later,  on  account  of  the  great  scale  on 
which  the  tombs  we  have  seen  in  the  Ceramicus  were  built,  it  was 
enacted  that  no  one  should  construct  a  tomb  more  elaborate  than  ten 
men  could  make  and  finish  up  in  three  days.  The  mechanism  of  our 
English  tongue  fails  to  show  that  effecerint  is  put  by  Cicero  in  the 
generalizing  form  (as  if  he  had  said  ten  men  would  accomplish  a 
certain  amount  of  work  in  three  days ;  and  that  amount,  it  was 
provided  by  law,  was  not  to  be  exceeded).       x 

Quid?  tu  me  hoc  tibi  mandasse  existimas,  ut  mihi  gladiatorum 
compositio7ies,  ut  vadimonia  dilata  et  Chresti  conpilatione?n  mit- 
teres  et  ea,  quae  nobis,  cum  Romae  sumus,  narrare  nemo  audeat  ? 
Cic.  Fam.  2,  8,  i.  Is  it  your  understanding,  my  dear  fellow,  that 
my  instructions  to  you  were  that  you  should  send  me  news  of 
matches  of  gladiators,  of  postponements  of  cases,  and  Chrestus's 
bundle  of  gossip,  arid  things  which,  whe7i  I  am  in  town,  no  one 
would  venture  to  tell  me  f  Sumus  and  audeat  are  alike  free  in 
tense. 

In  conclusions,  softened  statements,  etc.,  then,  the  primary 
tenses  of  the  subjunctive  are  in  themselves  expressive,  and  are 
exempt  from  any  Law  of  a  Sequence. 

8.   In  Final  Clauses, 

Nam,  ne  vos  falsa  opinio  teneat,  iniussu  meo  Albani  subiere  ad 
montem,  nee  imperium  illud  meum,  sed  consilium  et  imperi  simu- 
latio  fuit,  ut  nee  .  ,  .  et  terror  ac  fuga  iniceretur.     Liv.  i,  28,  5. 


14 

For,  7iot  to  leave  you  in  error  {lest you  may  misimderstand) ,  it  was 
not  at  my  bidding  that  the  Albans  went  up  the  hill,  nor  was  it  a 
command  of  mine,  but  a  device  to  throw  the  enemy  into  a  panic  {in 
order  that  the  enemy  might  be  thrown  i?ito  a  pafiic).  The  tense- 
less  phrase  in  order  to,  used  ahke  for  present  and  past  purposes  in 
Enghsh,  fails  to  convey  the  temporal  ideas  conveyed  by  the  Latin 
present  and  imperfect  subjunctive. 

It  will  not  do  to  answer  that  such  subjunctives  depend  upon 
omitted  verbs.  The  question  is,  do  the  subjunctives  of  themselves 
convey  to  us  temporal  ideas  ?  To  concede  that  they  tell  us  that  a 
verb  is  omitted,  and  that  they  tell  us,  moreover,  just  what  kind  of  a 
tense  that  verb  would  be  in,  if  expressed,  is  to  concede  to  them 
very  great  temporal  significance. 

In  final  clauses,  then,  the  primary  tenses  of  the  subjunctive  are 
expressive  of  temporal  relations,  and  owe  their  choice  to  that  fact, 
and  not  to  any  Sequence  of  Tenses. 

The  examination  has  now  covered  the  ground  of  the  dependent 
present,  perfect  definite,  and  aorist  subjunctive,  outside  of  a  very 
few  constructions.  We  may  accordingly,  and  for  the  last  time  in 
this  field,  bring  together  our  statements  into  the  following  (re- 
serving, for  the  present,  the  few  constructions  alluded  to)  : 

In  the  great  mass  of  constructions,  the  present,  perfect  definite, 
and  aorist  of  the  subjunctive  directly  express  the  temporal  aspect 
of  the  act  conveyed,  as  it  appears  to  the  speaker's  mind  at  the 
moment  of  the  utterance  of  the  verb  in  question.  They  have 
nothing  to  do  with  any  Sequence  of  Tenses.  If  there  be  a  control 
exercised  by  main  verbs  over  dependent  verbs,  its  field  must  be 
sought  for  on  other  ground. 

We  pass  to  the  remaining  tenses  of  the  subjunctive.  Have  they 
by  some  freak  of  linguistic  fate  fared  differently  ? 

I.   In  Consecutive  Clauses  after  UT. 

Haec  enim  {philosophid)  una  nos  cimi  ceteras  res  omnis,  tiun, 
quod  est  difficillijnum,  docuit,  ut  nosniet  ipsos  nosccrernus :  cuius 
praecepti  tanta  vis  et  tanta  se7itentia  est,  ut  ea  non  honihii  cuipiam, 
sed  Delphico  deo  tribueretur.  Cic.  Leg.  i,  22,  58.  .  .  .  the  pith  and 
force  of  which  precept  are  so  great,  that  it  was  attributed  7iot 
to  any  mortal  7nan,  but  to  the  god  of  Delphi.  The  cause  still  exists  : 
the  effect  instanced  lies  in  the  past,  as  a  subjunctive  tribuebatur. 

Quid  si  magnitudine pecimiae  persuasu7n  est?  Veri  si7nile  7i07i 
est,  ut  ilk  homo  tai7i  locuples^  ta7n  honcstus  religio7ii suae  77i07iu7?ie7i- 


15 

tisqiie  maiorum pecunimn  anteponeret  Cic.  Verr.  4,  6,  1 1.  .  .  //f  isn't 
a  7'easonable  thing  to  suppose  that  this  man,  so  rich,  so  honorable, 
would  proceed  to  put  money  above  religio7i  and  above  the  memo- 
rials of  his  ancestors.  The  sentence  has  followed  a  video  .  .  . 
vendituricm  non  fuisse.  Anteponeret  is  put  from  the  same  point 
of  time,  namely,  in  the  past,  as  if  we  were  to  say  //  isn't  likely  that 
he  would  at  that  time  prefer,  etc. 

Nimis  iracunde  hoc  quidem  et  valde  intempera7iter :  cuius  enim 
malefcii  tanta  ista  poena  est,  ut  dicere  in  hoc  ordine  auderet  se 
publicis  operis  disturbaturum  publice  ex  se7iatus  sente7itia  aedifi- 
cata7n  domumf  Cic.  Phil,  i,  5,  12.  For  what  wrong-doi7ig 
deserves  such  a  punishment,  that  he  should  venture  to  say  in  this 
body  ?  etc.  The  auderet  is  thought  of  in  the  succession  of  events 
in  the  past,  while  the  main  question  is  made  general. 

Ve7''i  si7nile  7ion  est,  ut,  que77i  in  secimdis  rebus,  quern  in  otio 
sc7nper  secu77i  habuisset,  himc  iii  adversis  et  in  eo  tu?7tultu  que7n 
ipse  comparabat,  ab  se  dimitteret.  Cic.  Sull.  20,  57.  It  isn't  likely 
that,  after  having  had  his  frie7id  with  him  C07istantly  in  prosperity 
a7id  in  quiet  ti7nes,  he  ^o\j\^  pack  Jmn  off  i7i  adversity  and  in  a 
disturba7ice  of  his  own  getti7ig-up.  The  thought  of  the  speaker 
as  he  says  dimitteret  is  back  at  the  time  of  in  adversis,  etc.,  to 
which  dimitteret  stands  related  as  dimittat  would  stand  related  to 
the  present ;  while  in  veri  si77iile  71071  est  Cicero  gives  the  present 
look  of  the  matter. 

Ac  si  nos,  id  quod  ?7iaxi77ie  debet,  7iostra  patria  delectat,  cuius 
rei  tanta  est  vis  \ac  tanta\  natura  ut  Ithacavt  illa7n  in  asperri7nis 
saxulis  tamqua77t  7iidulum  adfixam  sapientissimus  vir  i7imortali- 
tati  anteponeret,  quo  amore  tande77i  .  .  .  Cic.  de  Or.  i,  44,  196. 
.  .  .  the  power  of  which  se7itime7it\s  so  great  that  Odysseus  i^re^err^d 
(=z  sapie7itissimus  vir  Ithaca77i  illa7n  anteponebat :  ta7ita  est 
vis,  etc.). 

In  consecutive  ^^/-clauses,  then,  the  secondary  tenses  of  the  sub- 
junctive in  themselves  express  the  idea  that  the  act  stated  in  them 
is  put  as  from  a  point  of  view  in  the  past,  and  are  under  no 
law  of  any  Sequence. 

2.   In  Consec7itive  Relative  Se7ite7ices. 

Video  igitur  causas  esse  permultas  quae  istimi  impellerent. 
Videa77ius  7iunc  ecqtiae  facultas  suscipie7idi  77ialeficii  fuerit.  Ubi 
occisus  est  Sex,  Rosciusf  Ro77iae.  Quid?  tu,  Rosci,  ubi  ttmc 
eras?    Ro7nae.    Cic.  Rose.  Am.  33,  92.    I  recognize  the  existence 


i6 

of  a  7iumber  of  causes  of  such  a  nature  as  at  that  time  to  be 
pushing  him  on.  In  the  main  sentence  the  thought  is  in  the 
present ;  in  impellerent  it  is  in  the  past,  precisely  as  in  eras  at  the 
end  of  the  passage  quoted. 

The  secondary  verb  in  the  consecutive  relative  sentence,  then, 
conveys  in  itself  the  temporal  impression  which  the  speaker  de- 
sires to  give,  and  does  not  accept  its  tense  at  the  hands  of  the  main 
verb. 

3.   In  Causal  Sentences. 

Equidem,  cum  tuis  omnibus  negotiis  interessem,  ^nemoria  teneo 
qualis  T.  Ligarius  quaestor  urbanus  fuerit  ergo  te  et  dignitatem 
tuam.  Cic.  Lig.  12,  35.  Since  I  was  habitually  conceriied  in  all 
that  you  did,  I  have  not  forgotten  how  Ligarius  treated  you, 
Interessem  is  simply  a  subjunctive  intereram. 

In  the  field  of  the  secondary  tenses,  then,  the  verb  of  the  causal 
sentence  conveys  of  itself  the  desired  temporal  meaning,  and  is  free 
of  the  Sequence  of  Tenses. 

4.   In  Concessive  Sentences. 

Ilia  {epistolci)  fuit  gravis  et  plena  rerum,  quam  mihi  M.  Paccius^ 
hospes  tuus,  reddidit.  Ad  eam  rescribam  igitur,  et  hoc  quidem 
primum  :  Paccio  et  verbis  et  re  osteyidi,  quid  tua  cojnmendatio 
ponderis  haberet ;  itaque  in  intimis  est  meis,  cum  a^itea  7iotus  non 
fuisset.  Cic.  Att.  4,  16,  i.  .  .  .  I  showed  Paccius,  alike  in  word  arid 
171  deed,  what  iv  eight  your  good  opinion  carried;  arid  consequently 
he  is  now  one  of  my  inti?nate  friends,  though  previously  to  that 
we  had  been  strangers.  Est  lies  in  the  present,  while  the  point  of 
view  {ov  fuisset  is  seen  in  ante  a. 

In  the  field  of  the  secondary  tenses,  then,  the  temporal  aspect 
of  the  speaker's  thought  in  concessive  sentences  is  conveyed  di- 
rectly by  the  tense  employed,  and  no  control  is  exercised  by  the 
preceding  verb. 

5.   In  the  Indirect  Discourse,  etc. 

Laudantur  oratores  veteres,  Crassi  illi  et  Antonii,  quod  crimina 
diluere  dilucide,  quod  copiose  reorum  causas  defendere  solerent. 
Cic.  Verr.  2,  78,  191.  The  orators  of  the  old  school  are  praised 
because  it  was  their  way  to  defend  their  clients  without  stintirig 
time,  etc.     Solerent  is  simply  an  indirect  solebant. 

Quern  amicum  tuom   ais  fuisse  istum,  explana  inihi^  et  qui 


17 

cognaium  ?ne  sibi  esse  diceret.  Ter.  Phorm.  380-1.  Explain  to 
vie  who,  according  td  your  story,  this  friend  of  yours  was,  and 
what  manner  of  relationship  with  me  he  used  to  claim.  Diceret  is 
a  subjunctive  dicebat,  and  echoes  Phor7nios  statement  in  vss. 
365-6 :  Saepe  hiterea  mihi  se7iex  narrabat  se  hu7ic  neglegere  co- 
g7iatum  suo7n. 

Acta  quae  essent  usque  ad  a.  d.  VIII  Kal.  lunias  cognovi  ex 
tuis  litteris,  Cic.  Att.  3,  10,  i.  /am  informed  by  your  letters  what 
had  taken />/(2<:^  before  and  up  to  May  2^th. 

Quid  est  aliud  de  eo  referre  no7i  audere,  qui  contra  se  consulem 
exercitum  duceret,  nisi  se  ipsum  hostem  iudicare  f  Necesse  erat 
e7iim  alterutrum  esse  hostem;  nee  poterat  aliter  de  adversariis 
iudicari  ducibus.  Cic.  Phil.  3,  8,  21.  What  is  the  difference 
betwee7i  lacki7ig  courage  to  raise  the  question  in  regard  to  a  man 
who  was  leading  an  army  agai7ist  you,  and  passing  sentence  on 
yourself  as  a  public  ene7ny  ?  For  one  of  the  two  was,  m  the  nature 
of  things,  a  public  ene7ny ;  there  was  no  other  possible  ivay  of 
regarding  generals  who  were  facing  each  other  under  arms.  The 
question  quid  est  aliud  is  put  without  reference  to  the  special  occa- 
sion (just  as  in  the  English),  and  the  verb  duceret  (as  a  subjunc- 
tive ducebat,  corresponding  exactly  to  erat  following)  alone  gives 
the  time  at  which,  when  he  comes  to  give  the  special  occasion,  the 
speaker's  mind  is  engaged. 

nihil  enimfuit  clarius  ;  non  quo  quisquam  aliter  putasset,  sed 
nihil  de  insignibus  ad  laude7n  viris  obscure  mmtiari  solet.  Cic. 
Fam.  3, 1 1, 1.  For  7iothing  has  attracted  77iore  attention  ;  7iot  that 
anybody  had  expected  a  different  result,  but  people  never  talk  in  a 
closet  about  men  of  marked positio7i. 

Sed  quaero  a  te  cur  C.  Come  Hum  no7i  defenderem  :  7ium  lege7n 
aliquam  Cornelius  contra  auspicia  tulerit,  etc.  Cic.  Vatin.  2,  5. 
/want  _y<??/  to  answer  the  questio7i :  why  was  I  not  to  defend  Gaius 
Cor7ielius  f  Cur  non  defe7idere77i  is,  in  the  dependent  form  as  in 
the  independent,  a  deliberative  question  placed  at  a  point  in  past 
time.  The  tense  tells  its  own  story  (compare  it  with  that  of 
tulerit^,  and  has  an  inherent  and  inalienable  meaning  of  its  own, 
quite  distinct  from  that  of  any  other  tense. 

In  the  field  of  the  secondary  tenses,  then,  dependent  verbs  in  the 
indirect  discourse,  etc.,  of  themselves  express  the  desired  temporal 
aspect  of  the  act,  and  owe  their  tense  to  that  fact  and  to  no  outside 
influence. 


i8 

6.   hi  Conditions. 

Equidem  tibi potissimum  velim,  si  idem  ilia  vellet.  Cic.  Att.  ii, 
24,  2.  /should  like  the  will  to  be  put  into  your  hands  rather  than 
into  those  of  any  one  else,  if  her  wish  were  the  same. 

In  conditions,  then,  the  secondary  tenses  of  the  subjunctive  are 
used  because  they  express  the  idea  which  the  speaker  desires  to 
convey,  and  not  because  of  any  influence  exerted  by  the  main  verb. 

7.   In  Conclusions,  Softened  Statements,  etc. 

Nemost  quern  ego  nunciam  magis  cuperem  videre  quam  ie. 
Ter.  Eun.  561.  There's  nobody  whom  at  the  present  moment  I 
should  rather  see  tha7i  you. 

.  .  .  quia  tale  sit  ut,  vel  si  ignorarent  id  homines  vel  si  obmutu- 
issent,  sua  tamen  pulchritudine  esset  specieque  laudabile.  Cic. 
Fin.  2,  15,  49.  .  .  .  because  it  is  such  that  if  meii  did  not  know  it, 
or  if  they  had  never  breathed  a  word  about  it,  still  it  would  be 
praiseworthy  for  its  inherent  beauty  and  loveliness, 

Opinor,  tuum  testimonium,  quod  in  aliena  re  leve  esset,  id  in 
tua,  quoniam  contra  te  est,  gravissimum  debet  esse.  Cic.  Quinct. 
24,  76.  Your  evidence,  which,  where  another  person  is  concerned 
would  be  of  light  weight,  ought,  /  dare  say,  to  be  of  great  weight 
in  a  case  that  concerns  yourself ,  inasmuch  as  it  is  against  you. 

Non  est  credibile,  quae  sit perfidia  iii  istis  principibus,  2^^  volunt 
esse  et  ut  essent,  si  quicquam  haberent  fidei.  Cic.  ad  Att.  4,  5,  i. 
//  is  incredible  what  treachery  there  is  in  these  leaders  as  they 
desire  to  be,  and  as  they  would  be,  if  they  could  get  anybody  to 
t7'ust  them. 

In  dependent  conclusions,  etc.,  then,  the  secondary  tenses  of  the 
subjunctive  in  themselves  express  the  same  meaning  as  in  inde- 
pendent constructions,  and  owe  their  use,  accordingly,  to  the  fact 
that  they  convey  that  which  the  speaker  desires  to  say,  and  not  to 
any  influence  of  the  main  verb. 

8.   hi  Final  Clauses. 

Explicavi,  inquit,  sententiam  meam,  et  eo  quidem  consilio,  tuum 
indicium  ut  cognoscerem.  Cic.  Fin.  i,  21,  72.  /  have  now 
developed  my  views  to  you,  said  he,  and  my  purpose  in  doing  so 
was  to  get  your  J7cdgme7it  in  the  ^natter.  The  act  of  the  main 
verb  is  completed  at  the  moment  of  speaking,  and  carries  with  it 
the  idea  of  the  state  of  affairs  now  reached  (=:  habes  sententiam 


19 

meant),  while  the  purpose  of  the  act  operated  as  an  aim  from  the 
beginning  of  the  explicatio  {id  consilium  erat  ut,  etc.). 

Cum  ille  aut  vestra  aut  sua  culpa  manserit  apud  hostem — suas, 
si  metum  simulavit,  vestra,  si periculum  est  apud  vos  vera  referen- 
tibus — ego,  ne  ignoraretis  esse  aliquas  et  salutis  et  pads  vobis 
condiciones,  pro  vetusto  hospitio  quod  mihi  vobiscum  est  ad  vos 
veni.  Liv.  21,  13,  2.  While  he  has  stayed  in  the  enemy's  camp — 
whether  the  fault  be  his  or  yours — /  have  come  to  you  (am  here 
now)  ;  for  I  was  desirous  that  you  should  not  overlook  the  possi- 
bilities of  preservation  and  peace.  F'^/e/ would  issue  in  an  adsum  ; 
but  to  it  is  attached  the  hope  which  existed  in  the  speaker's  mind 
at  starting,  as  well  as  afterward. 

Ut  filius  cum  ilia  habitet  apud  te,  hoc  vestru7n  consilium  fuit. 
Ter.  Phorm.  933-4.  Yoii  want  my  son  to  live  with  her  at  your 
house — that  v^  2.^  your  plan.  The  diOnst  fuit  goes  back  to  the  time 
of  quom  repudiiim  alter ae  remiserim  quae  dotis  tantumdem  dabat, 
a  few  lines  before,  while  the  purpose  is  put  as  still  entertained. 

Sed  senattcs  consulta  duo  iam  facta  sunt  odiosa,  quod  in  consulem 
facta  putantur,  Catone  et  Domitio  postulayite,  unum,  ut  aptcd 
magistratus  inquiri  liceret,  alterum,  cuius  domi  divisor es  habitarent, 
adversus  rem  public  am.  Cic.  ad  Alt.  i,  16,  12.  But  a  couple  of 
odious  decrees  have  been  passed,  which  are  thought  to  aim  at  the 
consul.  .  . ,  one  io  the  effect  that  an  examination  before  magistrates 
should  be  permitted,  the  other,  etc.  The  ia7n  facta  simt  looks 
upon  the  decrees  as  being  now  law  ;  the  2^/-clause  looks  at  the 
aim  with  which  they  were  passed. 

"  Ut  me  omnes,'^  inquit,  ^^ pater,  tuo  sanguine  ortu7n  vere  ferrent, 
provocatus  equestria  haec  spolia  capta  ex  hoste  caeso  porto."  Liv. 
8,  7,  13.  That  all  men  might  say  with  justice,  father,  that  I  am  of 
your  blood,  I  bring  these  spoils  taken  from  the  dead  body  of  7ny 
challenger.  The  motive  ut  ferrent  (probably)  goes  back  to  the 
beginning  of  the  act  of  porto,  while  the  act  of  porto  itself  still 
goes  on. 

In  final  clauses,  then,  the  secondary  tenses  of  the  subjunctive 
are  chosen  when  and  because  they  will  express  the  speaker's 
meaning,  and  not  because  of  a  Law  of  Sequence. 

The  case  for  the  Law  of  the  Sequence  of  Tenses  seems  to  be 
in  a  curious  state.  It  would  be  supposed  that  a  law  laid  down  as 
this  is  would  cover  a  considerable  range  of  facts.  But  a  detailed 
examination  has  shown  us,  first,  that  in  nearly  all  the  dependent 
constructions  of  which   the  subjunctive   is   capable,  the  present, 


20 

perfect,  and  aorist  are  absolved  from  the  Law,  the  tense  being 
used  (just  as  if  there  were  no  law)  because  it  expresses  that  which 
the  speaker  has,  in  the  particular  verb  in  question,  to  say;  and 
secondly,  that  in  nearly  all  the  dependent  constructions  of  which 
the  subjunctive  is  capable  the  imperfect  and  pluperfect  are  likewise 
absolved  from  the  Law,  the  tense  being  used  (precisely  as  if  there 
were  no  law)  because  it  expresses  that  which  the  speaker  has,  in 
the  particular  verb  in  question,  to  say  ;  in  short,  a  detailed  examin- 
ation has  shown  that  in  the  great  mass  of  the  dependent  sub- 
junctive constructions  possible  to  the  Roman  language,  the  present, 
the  perfect,  the  aorist,  the  imperfect,  and  the  pluperfect  are  exempt 
from  the  Law.  But  these  are  all  the  tenses  that  the  Romans  had. 
Clearly,  then,  this  kingdom  ruled  by  the  Sequence  of  Tenses  is 
under  strong  suspicion  of  being  a  kingdom  in  dream-land. 

Under  this  condition  of  affairs,  we  shall  be  obliged,  in  our  second 
paper,  to  set  up  and  examine  the  hypothesis  naturally  suggested 
by  the  negative  results  thus  far  reached,  namely,  the  exact  oppo- 
site of  the  doctrine  formulated  by  Engelmann ;  which  will  then  be 
as  follows  :  ^'A  subjunctive  clause  is,  in  regard  to  its  tense '^  not 
"  dependent  upon  the  principal  sentence  ".•  in  dependent  as  in 
independeyit  subjunctives^  the  tense  conveys  meanings  and  owes  its 
.choice  to  that  fact. 


11. 

In  our  former  paper,  the  examination  of  the  received  doctrine 
of  the  Sequence  of  Tenses  betrayed  the  fact  that  the  great  mass 
of  constructions  are  exempt  from  the  supposed  Law ;  and  accord- 
ingly forced  us  to  set  up,  for  examination,  the  opposite  hypothesis, 
namely,  that  there  exists  no  such  law, — that,  in  a  word,  the  tense 
of  the  dependent  subjunctive  conveys  temporal  meaning,  precisely 
as  does  the  tense  of  an  independent  subjunctive  or  indicative. 

To  the  support  of  this  hypothesis  every  proof  which  we  have 
seen  militating  against  the  other  doctrine  will  at  once  repair,  and 
will  form  a  powerful  force.  The  sole  question  then  remains,  Can 
phenomena  be  produced  which  the  hypothesis  cannot  fairly 
explain  ?  If  so,  then  there  exists,  as  yet,  no  tenable  hypothesis, 
and  we  Latinists  must  go  to  work  to  study  the  facts  and  reach  a 
sound  doctrine  on  this  important  and  very" practical  subject;  if 
there  exist  no  such  phenomena,  then  we  may  at  once  label  our 
hypothesis  doctrine^  formulate  it  in  a  shape  suitable  for  tender 
minds,  and  teach  it. 

Now,  a  search  over  the  whole  field  will  be  able  to  produce 
six  objections  with  which  to  challenge  the  hypothesis,  namely: 

1.  The  fact  that  in  the  great  majority  of  cases  the  tenses  are  such 
as  would  be  in  conformity  to  the  supposed  Law  of  the  Sequence ; 

2.  The  fact  that  exceptions  do  not  occur  in  the  antequam  and  dum 
group  of  constructions  ;  3.  The  common  use  of  the  imperfect  in 
so-called  clauses  of  result  after  secondary  tenses ;  4.  The  use  of  a 
secondary  tense  of  the  subjunctive,  in  connection  with  a  main  verb 
in  the  past,  to  express  ideas  corresponding  to  facts  known  to  be 
true  at  the  time  of  speaking,  or  even  universally  true ;  5.  The  use 
of  a  secondary  subjunctive,  in  connection  with  conditions  and  con- 
clusions contrary  to  fact,  to  express  ideas  corresponding  to  facts 
known  to  be  true  at  the  time  of  speaking,  or  even  universally  true  ; 
6.  The  common  use  of  the  forms  -turtis  fuerit^  etc.,  after  primary 
tenses  to  represent  conclusions  contrary  to  fact. 


22 

I.  The  first  objection  need  detain  us  but  a  moment.  As  has 
been  already  suggested  in  connection  with  the  use  of  the  present 
in  consecutive  clauses,  the  phenomena  are  what  they  are  because 
the  ideas  which  they  express  are  such  as  come  oftenest,  owing  to 
the  constitution  of  things  in  this  world,  into  the  human  brain. 
To  take  up,  for  example,  the  "  exceptions,"  there  are  not  many 
present  results  of  remote  causes ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
only  result  in  the  past  that  can  follow  a  present  cause  is  an  his- 
torical example  of  a  cause  universally  existing,  or,  at  least,  always 
existing  up  to  the  present  time.  A  characterizing  present  is 
rarely  found  in  connection  with  a  remote  main  act,  because  the 
facts  or  tendencies  which  characterize  a  person  concerned  in  a 
past  activity  are  mostly  facts  or  tendencies  that  were  neighbors  of 
the  main  activity/  When,  however,  a  present  fact  or  tendency 
can  be  found  that  characterizes  a  person  concerned  in  a  past 
activity,  as  in  the  case  cited  from  Pliny  the  Younger,  the  Latin, 
like  other  languages,  simply  says  in  the  dependent  verb  what  there 
is  to  say.  Similarly,  the  reasons  which  governed  past  acts  or 
judgments  mostly  lie  in,  and  are  thought  in  connection  with,  the 
past,  and  can  lie  in,  or  be  thought  in  connection  with,  the  present, 
only  if  they  are  general  or  habitual  facts  on  which  a  past  act  or 
judgment  was  based,  or  past  facts  on  which  a  present  judgment  is 
based;  and,  in  the  same  way,  a  present  act  or  judgment  is  com- 
monly brought  about  by  a  reason  near  at  hand,  though  that  reason 
may  occasionally  be  an  act  habitual  in  the  past,  etc.  The  same 
things  are  true  of  acts  that  stand  to  each  other  in  an  adversative 
relation.  As  regards  final  sentences,  the  purpose  of  a  remote  act 
must  itself  have  lain  in  the  past,  and  the  purpose  of  a  present  act 
cannot,  in  strictness,  lie  in  the  past ;  though  a  past  purpose  may 
be  associated,  as  in  Livy's  utferre?ity  porto,  with  an  activity  begun 
in  the  past  and  still  going  on  (cf.  John  I  31 :  but  that  he  should  be 
made  manifest  unto  Israel,  therefore  am  I  come  baptizing  with 
water),  and  a  past  activity  may  be  associated  with  a  purpose  ex- 
pressed as  now  existing.  And,  in  general,  the  theory  that  the 
Romans  used  the  tenses  they  did  in  the  subordinate  clauses  because 
in  each  case  the  particular  tense  used  expressed  precisely  what 
they  wanted  to  say,  is  entirely  consistent,  as  I  believe,  with  the 
facts,  encountering  not  a  single  exception  in  the  whole  range  of 
Latin  literature ;  while  the  theory  of  an  outside  determination  of 

^  I  am  obliged  at  this  point,  in  default  of  the  explanation  of  the  meanings 
of  the  tenses  in  Part  IV,  to  content  myself  with  a  defective  phraseology. 


23 

the  tense  of  the  dependent  clause  is  confronted  ^at  every  turn  by- 
obstacles  that  cannot  be  disposed  of,  to  the  satisfaction  of  a  thinking 
mind,  by  the  magic  of  any  such  phrase  as  "  exception  to  the  rule." 

2.  The  second  objection  likewise  need  detain  us  but  a  moment, 
for  the  facts  on  which  it  rests  have  already  been  explained  in  the 
answer  to  objection  i. 

For  brevity's  sake  we  will  speak  of  the  set  of  constructions  (after 
antequam,  priusqiiam,  dum,  do7iec,  and  quoad)  as  the  aniequam  set. 

The  indicative  construction  gives  us  two  facts,  main  and  subor- 
dinate, arranged  in  the  order  of  their  occurrence,  and  with  a  clear 
mark  of  that  order  in  the  shape  of  the  adverb  +  relative,  ante- 
quam.  The  subjunctive  construction  gives  us  no  fact.  The  act 
pictured  in  it  may  have  taken  place  later,  or  may  never  have  taken 
place  at  all.  All  that  makes  no  difference  whatever.  The  act 
itself  is  simply  represented  as  existing  in  somebody s  brain  at  a 
certain  time  which  the  narrator  has  in  mind.  That  time,  of  course, 
is  the  time  of  the  main  act.  In  Liv.  i,  26,  i  :  priusquam  iiide 
digrederentur,  roganti  Metiio  ex  foedere  icto  quid  imperaret, 
imperat  Tullus,  we  are  not  told  in  the  least  that  Mettius  and  Tullus 
went  away,  but  only  that  they  had  a  going-away  in  mind,  and  that, 
with  that  departure  in  vieiv,  the  one  asked,  and  the  other  gave, 
instructions.  Digrederentur,  then,  is  not  an  historical  incident 
noted  by  the  narrator,  an  event  (indicative)  serving  as  a  terminus 
ante  quern  for  the  main  act,  but  the  thought  of  Mettius  and  Tullus  ; 
and,  in  general,  these  subjunctive  constructions  present  an  act  as  the 
thought  of  some  important  person  in  the  main  sentence,  generally 
the  principal  actor.  Now,  if  the  actor  acted  in  the  past,  then  the 
thought  in  the  light  of  which  he  acted  must  have  been  in  the  past; 
while  if  the  actor  is  acting  as  I  speak,  his  thought  must  lie  in  the 
present,  etc.  So,  then,  the  very  simple  reason  why  the  verb  of  the 
main  clause  (act  asserted)  and  the  verb  of  the  subordinate  clause 
(act  thought)  are  always  of  the  same  order  of  tenses  (both  in  the 
past,  or  both  in  the  present,  or  both  in  the  future)  is  that,  in  the 
constitution  of  things,  nobody's  mind  can  conceive  any  other  kind 
of  combination ;  and  what  we  cannot  conceive,  we  naturally  have 
no  occasion  to  express.  Precisely  as  under  i,  then,  the  explanation 
of  the  grammatical  phenomena  is  found  to  be,  not  a  mechanical 
dependence,  but  the  constitution  of  this  world.  And  it  would  be 
as  unreasonable  to  explain  the  observed  facts  by  a  supposed  in- 
fluence of  tense  upon  tense,  as  it  would  be  to  explain  in  the  same 
way  the  fact  that  we  do  not  find  in  Latin  literature  any  imperfect 


24 

subjunctive  of  result  after  a  future  cause,  instead  of  recognizing 
that  there  never  has  been,  nor  ever  can  be,  a  past  result  of  an  act 
that  has  not  yet  taken  place. 

3.  The  common  use  of  the  imperfect  in  clauses  of  result  attached 
to  causes  lying  in  the  past. 

In  occasional  instances,  it  might  be  claimed  that  the  imperfect 
subjunctive  has,  so  far  as  tense  goes,  the  same  force  as  the  imper- 
fect indicative,  portraying  e.  g.  a  resulting  state  of  affairs,  just  as 
the  imperfect  indicative  does  in  Greek  after  wore.  But  in  the  great 
majority  of  cases  in  the  narrative  style  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
the  independent  form  of  expression  of  the  result  would  be  the 
aorist  indicative,  just  as  in  abundant  cases  in  Greek.  If,  then,  the 
tense  tells  its  own  story,  why  not  the  aorist  subjunctive  ? 

It  is  a  pretty  question,  and  all  the  more  so  because  it  is  neces- 
sarily interlinked  with  another  pretty  question,  namely  :  in  clauses 
of  strict  result,  which  are  necessarily  clauses  of  fact,  why  the 
subjunctive  at  all  ?  Why  not  the  indicative,  as  in  Sanscrit,  Greek, 
German,  English,  etc.,  etc.  ?  What  is  the  history  of  this  purely 
Roman  form  of  expression  ?  ^ 

The  solution  is  not  difficult.  The  so-called  result-clause  is  in 
its  origin  no  clause  of  resulting  fact.  It  makes  no  unlimited  asser- 
tion— no  assertion  that  a  certain  thing  has  taken  place,  is  taking 
place,  or  will  take  place.  The  assertion  which  it  makes  is  a  limited 
one,  an  assertion  that  keeps  within  the  limits  of  the  visions  of  the 
mind.  In  Latin  such  an  assertion  is  expressed  by  the  subjunctive, 
in  Greek  by  the  optative.  In  Latin  the  limited  nature  of  the 
assertion  is  marked  by  the  mood  only ;  in  Greek  it  is  marked  not 
only  by  the  mood,  but  also  by  the  use  of  the  admirable  litde  label 
av.  Where  the  Latin  says  scias—yo2i' d  know — the  Greek  says 
yvolr]^  av.  Still,  cvcn  without  the  «j/,  the  Roman  is  able  to  make  a 
clear  difference  between  assertions  like  you'd  zindei'stand  easily, 
facilei7itellegas,?ind  assertions  like  you  understand  easily,  facile 
intellegis ;  between  assertions  like  you  saw,  videbas,  and  asser- 
tions \\\i&  you'd  see,  videres. 

Now,  the  source  of  all  the  consecutive  sentences,  whether  after 
qui  or  after  ut — a  perfectly  definite  and  concrete  source — is  this 
expression  of  independent  limited  assertion.'^     In  the  coordinating 

^  From  Anglo-Saxon  the  manuals  cite  a  few  examples  of  the  subjunctive  in 
a  resulting  fact-clause,  of  which  I  find  no  discussion. 

2 1  dissent  materially  from  Dahl  (Die  lat.  Partikel  VT,  pp.  153-164),  finding 
his  treatment  too  metaphysical,  and  not  resolutely  historical. 


25 

form  you  may  say,  e.g.^  of  a  given  theory  j^^z^W  easily  understand 
it :  it  is  a  very  simple  thing.  The  first  clause  is  just  as  indepen- 
dent a  statement  as  the  second  ;  it  has  a  construction  entirely  of 
its  own.  So  much  is  evident  at  the  outset.  Looking  further  at  its 
contents,  we  see  that  the  statement,  in  point  of  fact,  throws  a  certain 
light  upon  the  nature  of  the  thing  in  question ;  it  is  practically 
only  another  way  of  saying  a  very  simple  thing ;  it  is,  in  other 
words,  an  independent  characterizing  statefnent.  Reverse  the 
order,  putting  the  subjunctive  statement  last — it  is  a  very  simple 
thing  :  you'd  easily  understand  it — and  it  of  course  remains  pre- 
cisely what  it  was  before,  an  indepejtdenty  an  unattached^  charac- 
terizing statement. 

Wait  now  for  the  use  of  the  relative  to  develop,  and  then,  since 
the  same  object  of  thought  occurs  in  both  sentences,  tie  them 
together  by  using  which  instead  of  it  in  the  second,  and  you  have, 
without  any  change  in  the  grounds  of  the  mood,  the  dependeyit^ 
the  attached,  characterizing  statement,  common  to  all  languages. 

I  could  a  tale  unfold  whose  lightest  word  would  harrow  up  thy 
soul. — Shak.  Hamlet,  i,  5. 

Who  is  here  so  base  that  would  be  a  bojidman^ — Shak.  Jul. 
Caes.  3,  2. 

Tcoj/  /xei'  ovv  ras  TrarpiKas  /SacriXetas'  Trapaka^ovToav  rls  ov<  av  rovs  'Evayopov 

Kiv8vpovs  7TpoKpii;€uv;  (independent  characterizing  question,  corre- 
sponding to  a  characterizing  predication).     OuSe)?  ydp   ianv  oZtco 

paOvfios  ocrri^  av  de^airo  napa  rcov  npoyovcou  rrjv  apxrjv  ravrrjv  TrapaXn^eiv 
fxaXKov  rj  KTrjcrdfxevos  coarr^p  e/cavoy  toIs  naicrl  to7s  avrov  KaTaXiTreiv ',  (de- 
pendent characterizing  predication).  Isocr.  Evag.  35 :  ...  who 
would  ?iot  rather  choose  .  .  .  ?  There  is  no  one  so  easy-going  that 
{he)  would  prefer,  etc. 

Tiff  ovv  ovroas  dyaOos   rj    tls  ovTa>s   laxvpbs    6?   XifiS    koi   piyei   bvvatr     av 

fxaxofievos  a-rpar^veaOai ;  Xen.  Cyr.  6,  I,  14.  IVho  is  SO  brave  or  who 
so  strong  thai  {lie')  could  serve  a  campaign  against  hunger  and 
cold  f 

Nihil  est  aeque  quod  faciam  lubens.  Ter.  Phorm.  565.  There 
is  nothing  that  /should  so  like  to  do. 

Vin  primum  hodie  facere  quod  ego  gaudeam,  Nausistrata,  et 
quod  tuo  viro  oculi  doleant  ?  Ter.  Phorm.  1052-3.  Do  you  want 
to  begin  to-day,  Nausistrata,  by  doing  something  that  would  delight 
me^  and  would  make  your  husband's  eyes  smart? 

Cupio  videre  qui  id  audeat  dicer e.  Cic.  Phil.  5,  2,  6.  I ivant  to 
see  the  man  that  would  venture  to  say  that. 


26 

By  a  precisely  similar  development  the  relative  locative  uti  (ut), 
which  differs  from  qui  only  in  having  a  sentence  for  an  antecedent 
instead  of  a  single  word/  introduces  a  characterizing  statement 
(called  a  result-clause)  of  limited  predication,  precisely  as  do  the 
corresponding  Greek  sentence-relative  cbs  (an  ablative)  and  (uore, 
and  the  English  that  A  perfect  specimen  would  be  had  by  trans- 
posing the  two  sentences,  with  ut  for  a  connective,  in  the  following, 
from  Tac.  Ann.  i,  8i,  i  :  de  comitiis  consularibus,  quae  turn 
primmn  illo  principe  ac  deinceps  fuere,  vix  quicquam  firmare 
ausim  :  adeo  diver sa  no?i  modo  apud  auctores  sed  in  ipsius  orationi-* 
bus  reperiuntur. 

Bpecf)os  yap  rju  tot  iv  KXvTaijxvrja-Tpas  x^potV}  ot  i^eXcLTTOV  p.e\n6pov  is  Tpoiav 
i(jt>v,  axTT    ovK  av  avTov  yva)pl(raifi    av  ticnScoj/.      Eurip.  Orest.  377'"9*     -^'^ 

was  a  babe  in  Clytemnestra^  s  arms  when,  setti7ig  off  for  Troy^  I 
left  77iy  roof,  (whereby)  so  that  /should  not  know  him  setting  eyes 
on  him. 

Quae  (occupatioj  etsi  summa  est,  tamen  nulla  esse  potest  tanta 
e^/ interrumpat  iter  amoris  riostri.  Cic.  Att.  4,  2,  i.  Though  my 
occupations  are  very  pressing,  still  fione  could  be  so  pressing  as  to 
(that  they  would)  interrupt  the  course  of  our  love. 

The  Latin,  however,  alone  among  languages,  extends  this  wholly 
logical  characterizing  construction  beyond  its  original  bounds. 
After  Tts-  ovTws  ev^erjs  c(tt\v  vfx5)v,  e.  g,,  the  Greek  distinguishes  per- 
fectly between  oo-tis  dyvod  and  oo-n?  av  dyuool,  just  as  the  English 
distinguishes  perfectly  between  that  knows  not  and  that  would  7iot 
kyiow.  The  Latin,  however,  fails  to  make  such  a  distinction  as 
might  have  been  expressed,  after  quis  est  ve strum  tam  stultuSy  by 
qui  nesciat  and  qui  nescit.  The  form  of  which  qui  nesciat  is  a  type 
comes  to  be  practically  a  phrase  of  te7idency,  of  7iatural  direction 
toward  so7ne  act,  and  so  conveys  very  much  the  same  feeling  as  does 
the  English  S2ich  as  to,  in  which  as  is  a  relative,  while  the  suggestion 
of  direction  is  conveyed  by  the  preposition  to.  This  may  be 
called  the  second  stage  in  the  history  of  the  construction.  Next 
there  intrudes  into  the  idea  conveyed  by  the  construction,  which 
'  does  not  in  itself  deal  with  the  world  of  reality,  an  idea  that  squints 
at  that  world.  If  I  say  he  is  such  a  man  as  never  to  lie,  I  might 
as  well  have  said  he  is  a  man  who  never  lies,  and  might,  indeed, 
very  easily  be  quoted  as  having  said  that  precise  thing.  In  many 
Latin  sentences,  in  fact,  it  is  impossible  to  be  sure  whether  limited 

'  'Uti  might  be  rudely  rendered  ivhereby ;  for  the  word  by  likewise  begins 
with  expressing  a  local  relation,  and  then  passes  into  an  expression  of  means. 


27 

or  unlimited  predication  is  meant.  And  so  the  thing-  felt  and  the 
thing  said  come  to  be  confused,  and  the  construction  of  the  latter 
is  used  to  express  the  idea  of  the  former ;  or,  in  other  words,  in 
the  Latin  language  the  mood  of  characterizing  predication  limited 
becomes  also,  in  relative  sentences,  the  mood  of  characterizing 
predication  unlimited. 

So  much  for  the  mood.  As  regards  the  tense,  the  present 
expresses  a  limited  predication  of  an  act  thought  as  future  to  the 
time  of  speaking  ;  while  the  tense  for  limited  predication  of  an 
act  thought  as  similarly  situated  relatively  to  a  past  time  is  the 
so-called  imperfect.  An  example  will  give  a  clear  idea  of  this 
latter  use.  In  this  way  I  should  get  at  the  real  thing  would  be,  in 
Tacitean  phraseology,  hoc  modo  id  incorruptuni  sit.  The  same  idea 
put  interrogatively  would  be  q^ionam  modo  id  inc or r upturn  sit.  Let 
time  pass  on,  and  then  state  a  past  question  of  this  sort,  and  you 
have  quonam  modo  id  incorruptum  foret,  as  Tacitus  uses  it  in  Ann. 
2,  12,  3,  In  dependence  upon  agitabat  {igitur  propinquo  summae 
rei  discrimine  explorandos  militum  animos  ratus,  quonam  id  modo 
incorruptum  foret  secum  agitabat^. 

Inasmuch  as  to  carry  a  limited  statement  back  into  the  past  Is 
practically  to  quote  It,  which  requires  the  use  of  the  infinitive,  it  is 
not  strange  that  we  but  rarely  find  examples  of  this  imperfect  sub- 
junctive in  the  independent  declarative  form.  A  remarkable  in- 
stance, however,  is  to  be  found  In  the  oratio  obliqua  in  Caes.  B.  C. 
3)  73  •  contionem  apud  milites  habuit .  .  .  dandam  omnibus  operam 
ut  acceptum  incommodum  virtute  sarciretur ;  quod  si  esset factum 
(future  condition),  detrimentum  in  bonum  verteret  (future  conclu- 
sion).^ 

Now,  the  constructions  nihil  est  aeque  quod  faciam  lubens 
{there  Is  nothing  that  I  should  so  gladly  do')  become,  when  stated 
again  for  the  original  situation  after  some  time  has  elapsed,  nihil 
erat  aeque  quod  facerem  lubens  (to  translate  into  unfamiliar  but 
intelligible  English,  there  was  at  that  time  nothing  that  I  would  at 
that  time  so  gladly  do).  Faciam  and  facerem  both  express 
limited  predication,  each  from  its  standpoint,  and  the  sole  differ- 

*  Other  examples  are  probably /r^T/fr^r^/  and  citaret  in  Hor.  Sat.  i,  3,  6  and  7. 
It  is  a  very  illustrative  fact,  furthermore,  that  in  English  the  corresponding 
forms  of  limited  predication  from  a  past  standpoint  (namely,  the  auxiliaries 
would,  should,  etc.)  are  the  regular  forms  of  expression  in  indirect  quotations, 
as,  e.  g.,  in  the  translation  of  verteret  above.  The  construction,  of  course,  plays 
a  large  part  in  both  languages,  in  a  secondary  stage,  as  the  means  of  expression 
for  conclusions  contrary  to  fact. 


28 

ence  lies  in  that  standpoint.  The  facial  of  to-day  becomes  the 
faceret  of  to-morrow's  retrospect.  So  far,  all  is  strictly  logical. 
And  when  the  construction  of  the  mood  extends  itself  in  Latin, 
the  tense  and  the  mood  go  together,  the  former  still  carrying  the 
idea  oi  connection  with  a  past  time ;  and  the  tense  is  no  more  the 
product  of  a  subtile  influence  exerted  by  the  tense  of  the  main 
verb  than  is  the  mood  the  product  of  a  subtile  influence  exerted 
by  the  mood  of  the  main  verb.^ 

4.  The  use  of  a  secondary  tense  of  the  subjunctive,  in  connection 
with  a  main  verb  in  the  past,  to  express  ideas  corresponding  to 
facts  known  to  be  true  at  the  time  of  speaking,  or  even  universally 
true. 

A  universal  fact  may  be  regarded  with  reference  to  its  bearing 
upon  some  present  act  or  judgment,  or  with  reference  to  its  bearing 
upon  some  past  act  or  judgment.  In  the  first  case  it  is  a  universal 
truth  put  as  now  applicable^  in  the  second  a  universal  truth  put  as 
then  applicable.  That  which  tells  whether  the  point  of  view  from 
which  the  universal  truth  is  applied  is  that  of  a  present  judgment 
or  that  of  a  past  judgment,  is  the  tense.  Its  power  is  seen  clearly 
in  independent  sentences  in  English  ;  e.g.  the  sentence  Tyra7iny  is 
never  right — the  orator  sdijs — eve7i  if  it  be  the  tyranny  of  a  majority 
over  a  minority^  becomes,  as  we  speak  of  the  same  utterance  later, 
Tyra7iny  was  never  right — the  orator  said — even  if  it  were  the 
tyranny  of  a  majority  over  a  minority?  It  is  not  even  necessary, 
in  such  a  use,  to  have  any  word  indicating  an  indirectness  of  state- 
ment; e.  g.  in  Guizot's  Earth  and  Man  (preface,  p.  vi)  I  find  this 
sentence :  Numerous  quotations  and  references  were  incompatible 
with  the  form  of  these  discourses.  They  remain  incompatible  ; 
but  the  point  is  not  the  general  incompatibility  as  recognized  at 
the  time  of  writing  the  preface,  but  the  incompatibility  as  recog- 
nized and  acted  upon  at  the  time  of  the  writing  of  the  discourses. 
The  matter  may  then  be  briefly  stated  as  follows :  general  or 
lasting  facts  may  be  put,  in  their  larger  aspect,  in  the  general 
present  or  so-called  logical  perfect,  or,  in  their  aspect  as  bearing 

^  The  mood  in  the  resulting  fact-clause  never  freed  itself  from  its  illegiti- 
mate origin,  never  became  the  indicative;  but  the  tense  in  these  clauses  did 
after  a  while — first  in  Cicero's  time — partly  free  itself  from  its  illegitimate 
origin,  and  frequently  appears,  in  appropriate  places,  as  the  aorist.  In  the 
main,  however,  the  old  habit  continues,  and  the  aorist  therefore  always  had  the 
power  of  catching  sharply  the  attention. 

*0n  this  point,  and  others  connected  with  it,  Otto  Behaghel's  Die  Zeitfolge 
der  abhangigen  Rede  im  Deutschen  is  very  helpful. 


29 

upon  some  past  act  at  the  time  of  which  they  Hkewise  existed,  in 
the  imperfect  or  logical  pluperfect. 

The  same  phenomena  occur  in  Latin  in  the  indicative  in  subor- 
dinate clauses,  as  in  Cic.  Fam.  5,  2,  9  :  sedtamen fieri  non  moleste 
tuli  atque  etiam^  ut  ita  fieret,  pro  me  a  parte  adiuvi,  ut  senati  con- 
sulto  meus  inimicus^  quia  tuus  /rater  ersit,  sud  lev  are  tur  (the  lasting 
fact,  tzms  f  rater  est,  furnishes  a  ground  for  action  on  the  past 
occasion  mentioned  ;  for  which  time,  of  course,  the  statement  must 
be,  not  est,  but  erat).  A  comparison  oi  pertinerent  and  the  pre- 
cisely parallel  pertinebant  in  the  two  sentences  following  will  show 
what  the  feeling  of  the  tense  of  the  subjunctive  is  :  Cic.  Tusc.  1,1, 
I :  ...(?/,  cum  omnium  artium,  quae  ad  rectam  vivendi  viam  per- 
tinerent, ratio  et  disciplina  studio  sapientiae,  quae  philosophia  dici- 
tur,  contineretur,  hoc  mihi  Latinis  litteris  inlustrandu7n  putavi . . . ; 
De  Or.  3,  19,  72:  Namque,  ut  ajite  dixi,  veteres  illi  usqtie  ad 
Socratem  o^nnem  omnium  rerum,  quae  ad  mores  hominum,  quae 
ad  vitam,  quae  ad  virtutem,  quae  ad  rem  publicam  pertinebant, 
cognitionem  et  scientiam  cum  dicendi  ratione  iungebant. 

One  cannot,  therefore,  believe  in  a  mechanical  and  unfeeling  use 
of  the  subjunctive  in  these  cases,  unless  he  is  prepared  also  to 
believe  in  a  mechanical  and  unfeeling  use  of  the  indicative  in 
similar  sentences,  including  independent  sentences  in  modern  lan- 
guages. 

5.  The  use  of  a  secondary  tense  of  the  subjunctive,  in  dependence 
upon  conditions  and  conclusions  contrary  to  fact,  to  express  ideas 
corresponding  to  facts  known  to  be  true  at  the  time  of  speaking, 
or  even  universally  true. 

In  complex  sentences  made  up  of  a  main  sentence  with  subjunc- 
tive verb  and  one  or  more  subordinate  sentences,  the  modal  feeling 
in  the  speaker's  mind  which  expresses  itself  in  the  main  sentence 
is,  in  the  nature  of  things,  very  likely  to  continue  in  the  speaker's 
mind  in  the  subordinated  sentence  or  sentences,  either  quite  un- 
changed or  but  slightly  shaded.  If,  for  example,  I  say  in  Latin, 
Let  him  send  whom  he  will,  mittat  quern  velit,  the  mood  in  velit  is 
not  a  case  of  ''attraction"  or  "assimilation"  at  all.  Velit  is  as 
much  a  jussive  as  mittat  is.  The  meaning  is,  Let  him  choose  his  man, 
and  send  that  man,  or,  in  older  English,  choose  he  his  man  and  send 
him.  In  sei  ques  esent  quei  sibei  deicerent  necesus  ese  Bacanal 
habere  (C.  I.  196),  the  deicerent  is  as  much  a  future  condition 
(=  sei  ques  deicerent^  as  esent  is.  In  the  sentence  in  Mr.  Howells's 
Lemuel  Barker  (cap.  23),  If  a  person  heard  afterwards,  when  I 


30 

had  made  out  somethijig,  if  I  ever  did,  that  I  had  been  a  servant^ 
would  they  despise  7iie  for  it  ?,  the  had  made  out  is  as  much  an 
ideal  state  of  affairs  in  the  future  as  is  the  main  condition,  heard ; 
and  the  Latin-speaking  man  would,  of  course,  use  in  both  of  them 
the  same  mood,  with  an  unchanged  feeling.  But  he  would  also, 
of  course,  use  a  tense  of  the  same  set — not  because  he  had  used  a 
primary  tense  in  the  main  sentence,  but  because  the  feeling  which 
he  has  to  express  when  he  gets  to  the  second  verbal  idea  requires 
the  same  kind  of  a  tense  to  convey  it.  Tense  and  mood  are  here 
inseparable.  Precisely  like  the  case  from  Mr.  Howells  is  Lucre- 
tius's  nee,  si  materiam  nostrum  collegerit  aetas .  .  .  pertineat  quic- 
quam  tamen  ad  nos  id  quo  que  factum,  interrupta  seme  I  cum  sit 
repetentia  nostri  (3,  847-851),  though  Munro,  with  a  less  delicate 
feeling  than  a  Roman's,  translates  by  has  instead  of  had.  Simi- 
larly in  Cicero's  quod  scribere,  praesertim  cum  de  philosophia 
scriberem,  non  auderem,  nisi  idem  p\3.ceret  gravissimo  Stoic  or  21m 
Panaetio  (Off.  2,  14,  51),  cum  scriberem  does  not  mean  especially 
710W  that  I  am  writing,  but  especially  if  I  were  writing  (/should 
7iot  venture  to  write  this,  especially  if  writing,  as  now,  about 
philosophy,  were  //  not  that  Payiaetius  takes  the  same  view'),  as 
Madvig  recognizes  (Gramm.,  §383,  2),  though  the  translation  fails 
to  convey  what  he  points  out. 

Now,  this  same  delicacy  of  feeling  appears  to  me  palpably  to 
obtain  in  a  great  many  cases  where  we  find,  attached  to  a  condition 
or  conclusion  contrary  to  fact,  a  subordinate  clause  the  contents  of 
which  are  known  to  correspond  to  objective  reality.  I  do  not  feel 
that  in  these  cases  the  Roman  verb  predicates  objective  reality  at 
all,  but  rather  that  the  thought  is  colored  by  the  ideal  complexion  of 
the  whole  feeling.  InCic.  N.  D.  i,  17,  45:  si  nihil  aliud  qn^i^re- 
remus  7iisi  2it  deos  pie  coleremus  et  2it  superstitioiie  liberaremur, 
satis  erat  dictum ;  nam  et  praestaiis  deorum  natura  hominum 
pietate  coleretur,  cum  et  aeterna  esset  et  beatissima  .  .  .  et .  .  .,  the 
aim  in  coleremus,  whatever  may  be  the  objective  facts  in  regard  to 
our  habits  of  worship,  is  in  this  case  an  inseparable  part  of  the 
unreal  condition  si  nihil  alitid  quaereremus ;  and,  in  precisely  the 
same  way,  the  cum  aeterna  esset  is  not  a  general  ground  asserted 
as  having  a  present  bearing,  but  a  general  ground  recognized  as 
one  that  would  bear  upon  this  ideal  case  (=  in  that  case  the  sur- 
passing nature  of  the  gods  would  receive  the  pious  ivorship  of 
mankind,  being — still  in  that  case — recognized  as  eternal,  etc.). 

The  same  thing  is  true,  though  with  a  still  finer  shade  of  meaning, 


31 

in  Cic.  Inv.  I,  2,  3 :  .  .  .  qui  iandem  fieri  pottdt^  nisi  homines  ea 
quae  ratione  invenlssent,  eloquentia  persuadere  potuissent  .  .  . ; 
how  could  all  this  have  taken  place ^  had  not  rnen — supposing  them 
to  have  made  discoveries — also  had  the  gift  of  commending  them 
by  fair  words  f  Quae  invenissent  is  not  an  independent  assertion, 
though  such  an  assertion  might,  of  course,  be  made,  but  an 
assumption  forming  a  part  of  an  ideal  sum  total. 

So  far  under  this  head,  I  trust  my  readers  are  still  with  me,  and 
are  disposed,  after  these  examples,  to  look  for  a  modal  feeling, 
rather  than  an  entire  absence  of  both  modal  and  temporal  feeling, 
in  constructions  of  this  sort  in  general ;  recognizing,  too,  that  our 
own  language  is  less  fine  in  expression — which  means  that  our 
feeling  itself  is  less  fine — than  that  of  the  Roman,  as  is  exemplified 
by  Munro's  "  has "  in  the  rendering  of  the  passage  cited  from 
Lucretius.  This  being  so,  we  will  now  examine  a  case  of  the  same 
kind,  presenting  as  great  a  difficulty  as  can  be  summoned  up,  the 
passage  Cic.  Tusc.  i,  5,  9  :  nam  si  solos  eos  diceres  miseros  quibus 
moriendum  esset,  nemiiiem  tu  quidem  eorum  qui  viverent  exci- 
peres.  A  rough  rendering  would  be  :  For  if  you  applied  the  riame 
wretched  to  such  alone  as  were  doomed  to  die,yo7i  could  not  make 
an  exception  for  such  as  breathed  the  breath  of  life,  no,  not  for 
one.  Even  in  the  English  translation,  I  cannot  feel  that  the  verbs 
were  dooined  and  breathed  are  merely  perverted  assertions — verbs 
not  only  tenseless  but  modeless — but  rather  that,  though  corre- 
sponding to  facts  which  every  one  knows,  they  are  here  set  up  in 
the  imagination  as  an  integral  and  indivisible  part  of  the  sum 
total  of  the  ideal  condition  and  conclusion ;  so  that  it  would  be  a 
fair  rendering  of  the  feeling,  though  a  bulky  one,  to  translate  as 
follows  :  Supposing  there  were  people  doomed  to  die — and  we  know 
that  all  men  are — and  supposing  you  called  those  people,  and  no 
others,  unhappy,  then,  assuming  the  existence  of  living  people  in 
this  world — a  safe  assumptio7i—you  would  have  to  call  every 
soul  of  them  by  the  same  word,  unhappy. 

The  cases  that  fall  under  this  head,  then,  are  not  specimens  of  a 
mechanical  adaptation  of  outward  form,  but  of  a  very  subtile  and 
delicate  modal  feeling,  existing  consistently  alike  in  the  main  idea 
and  in  subordinate  ideas  that  form  an  integral  part  of  it.^ 

'  Upon  this  point  really  turns  the  whole  battle.  But  that  battle  is  no  longer 
for  the  saving  of  the  Sequence  of  Tenses  in  toto;  it  is  for  the  saving  only  of  a 
little  territory  covered  by  a  part  of  the  examples  under  this  one  head.  If  there 
are  any  who  believe  that  this  modal  feeling  does  not  exist,  and  that  the  use  of 


32 

6.  The  sole  remaining  hope  of  the  doctrine  lies  in  the  use  of  the 
periphrastic  form  -tunes  fuerit,  etc.,  in  certain  of  those  cases  in 
which  a  conclusion  contrary  to  fact  is  put  as  dependent — in  certain 
of  them  only,  be  it  observed ;  for  we  have  to  begin  at  once  to  make 
inroads  even  upon  this  petty  territory.  Firstly,  the  matter  touches 
only  conclusions  contrary  to  fact  in  past  time ;  conclusions  contrary 
to  fact  in  present  time  remain  their  simple  selves  and  ignore  the  so- 
called  sequence  (A.  J.  P.  VII,  p.  463).  Secondly,  the  rule  is  almost 
constantly  violated  after  secondary  tenses  (where  under  its  sway 
the  tense  ought  to  remain  unaffected)  by  the  change  of  a  pluper- 
fect to  the  historical  perfect  fuerit  with  the  future  participle,  etc. 
The  corresponding  indicative  form,  the  modus  operandi  of  which 
we  need  not  recall,  is  in  use  in  the  independent  construction,  but, 
be  it  observed,  is  there  the  less  common  construction,  while  in  the 
dependent  form  it  is  used  in  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a  hundred. 
Now,  this  use^  marks  a  distinct  preference  of  the  Romans,  and  a 
preference  all  the  more  striking  because  it  goes  against  the  sup- 

the  tense  in  some  of  these  cases  is  purely  mechanical,  then  they  should  feel 
that  we  have  come  at  last  to  a  class  of  phenomena  to  which  the  doctrine  of  the 
temporal  expressiveness  of  all  subjunctives  does  not  apply.  But  it  by  no  means 
follows  that  they  are  thereby  justified  in  holding  the  doctrine  of  the  half-tense- 
lessness  (I  say  half-tenselessness  because  it  is  universally  granted  that  the 
dependent  subjunctive  tense  retains  one  of  the  two  powers  of  the  independent 
tense,  that  of  distinguishing  between  actions  complete  and  actions  without 
reference  to  completeness)  of  all  dependent  subjunctives.  They  should  in  that 
case  hold  that,  as  there  is  undoubtedly  a  point  in  the  stylistic  development  of 
the  language  at  which  the  subjunctive  mood  is  used  without  modal  meaning 
(the  final  stylistic  outcome  of  the  common  natural  unity  of  modal  feeling  in  a 
succession  of  verbs  attached  to  a  subjunctive) — though  not  commonly  so  used — 
in  the  same  way,  there  is  a  point  at  which  the  tense  also  carries  no  meaning — 
though  not  commonly  so  used.  And,  at  the  very  least,  it  is  clear,  after  the  ex- 
hibit in  the  previous  paper  of  the  great  range  of  the  "  exceptions,"  that  one  who 
believes  in  the  Law  of  Sequence  should  believe  in  it  as  a  law  which  nobody  is 
bound  to  obey — a  law  which,  whatever  it  may  do,  never  trammels  a  speaker  or 
writer ;  for,  even  in  the  set  of  cases  just  now  under  discussion,  a  writer  is  perfectly 
free  to  break  with  the  supposed  Law,  as  Cicero  does  in  the  sentence  already  cited 
from  Fam.  13,  6a,  4:  quae  quantum  in  provincia  valeant,vellem  expertus  essem, 
sed  tamen  suspicor.  Even  to  add  to  the  statement  of  the  Law  in  the  grammars 
so  much  of  a  concession  as  this  would  save  teachers  in  the  preparatory  schools 
from  difficulties  (see  page  71,  below)  which  I  have  been  told  they  now 
experience. 

J  It  is  not  quite  universal  ;  see  Livy,  2,  33,  10 :  Tantumque  sua  laude  obstitit 
famae  consulis  Marcius,  ut,  nisi  foedus  cum  Latinis  columna  aenea  insctdptum 
monumento  esset,  ab  Sp.  Cassia  una,  quia  collega  afuerat^  ictum,  Postumutn  Co- 
minium  bellum  gessisse  cum  Volscis  mevioria  cessisset. 


33 

posed  rule.^     The  feeling  that  probably  underlies  it  we  will  not 
take  time  to  discuss. 

We  have  now  narrowed  the  ground  to  absolutely  the  last 
phenomenon  that  can  be  claimed  for  a  Sequence  of  Tenses,  namely, 
the  use  in  conclusions  contrary  to  fact  after  primary  tenses  only 
{the  supposed  rule  bei?ig  nearly  always  violated  after  secondary')^ 
and  in  forms  referring  to  the  past  only  {the  supposed  rule  beijig 
alzvays  violated  in  forms  referring  to  the  present)  of  the  peri- 
phrastic -turus  fuerit,  etc.,  instead  of  the  pluperfect  subjunctive. 
The  amount  of  evidence  for  the  Sequence  of  Tenses  which  this  use 
affords,  seen  in  the  light  of  the  contradiction  of  that  evidence  on 
its  own  territory  in  the  habitual  violation  of  the  Sequence  after 
secondary  tenses,  and  the  universal  violation  of  it  when  the  con- 
clusion refers  to  present  time,^  and  seen,  further,  in  the  light  of  the 
enormous  evidence  presented  on  the  other  side  by  phenomenon 
after  phenomenon  in  construction  after  construction,  is  so  very 
small,  that  even  if  its  use  were  without  an  exception,  one  would 
not  be  too  bold  who  should  consider  the  probability  to  be  over- 
whelming that  the  ground  of  the  use  lay  in  a  special  liking  for  the 
subordinated  form  of  the  future  participle  with  fuerit  (a  prefer- 
ence habitual,  as  we  have  seen,  in  despite  of  the  supposed  law,  after 
secondary  tenses,  and  possibly  reinforced  by  the  constant  use  of  a 
similar  infinitive  form  in  main  statements  in  indirect  discourse), 
and  not  in  any  supposed  law.  Biit,  in  point  of  fact,  we  find  that 
even  in  this  last  little  shred  of  territory  which  our  examination  has 
not  yet  stripped  from  the  kingdom  of  the  Sequence  of  Tenses, 
Cicero  finds  the  pluperfect  subjunctive  entirely  competent  to  ex- 
press the  temporal  idea  he  wants  to  convey,  as  in  pro  Sest.  29, 
62  :  quod  ilk  si  repudiasset,  dubitatis  qui^i  ei  vis  esset  adlata  "^ 
Brut.  35,  126:  quam  ille  facile  tali  ingenio^  diutius  si  vixisset^ 
vel  paternam  esset  vel  avitam  gloriam  consecutus !  eloquentia 
quidem  nescio  an  habuisset /^r^w  ne7ninem  ;  ibid.  41, 151  :  atque 
haud  scio  an  par  principibus  esse  potuisset ;  after  which  examples 

'  Even  where  the  tense  demanded  by  the  theory  of  the  sequence  is  found, 
yet  the  preference  is  for  the  periphrastic  form,  as  in  Liv.  10,  45,  3 :  Subibat 
cogitatio  aninium  quonam  modo  tolerabilis  futura  Etruria  fuisset,  si  quid  in 
Santnio  adversi  evenisset ;  2?i,ii\yi\  apparuitqtie  quantum  excitatura  mo  tern  vera 
fuisset  clades  ;  and  so  frequently. 

^  To  say  that  the  imperfect  has  to  be  retained  because  the  present  would 
express  something  different,  namely,  a  future  conclusion,  is  to  attribute  to  the 
tenses  of  the  subjunctive  that  power  of  expressing  temporal  relations  which  it 
is  the  purpose  of  this  paper  to  claim  for  them. 


34 

it  needs  no  boldness  whatever  to  say,  as  I  now  do  without  reserve, 
that  the  tenses  of  the  Latin  subjunctive,  alike  in  dependent  arid  in 
independent  sentences,  tell  their  own  temporal  story — that  no  such 
thing  as  is  meant  by  the  doctrine  of  the  Sequence  of  Tenses  exists. 
But  the  conviction  thus  reached  of  the  non-existence  of  an  out- 
side power  controUing  the  tense  of  a  subordinate  verb  is  seen  to  be 
not  merely  true,  but  pleasingly  true,  the  most  natural  and  probable 
thing  in  the  world,  when  we  recall — what  is  now  become  a  com- 
monplace of  the  grammarians — that  nearly  all  the  dependent  con- 
structions were  once  simply  independent  constructions  having 
neighbors  related  in  the  speaker's  mind  but  not  in  formal  expres- 
sion ;  and  that  they  then,  as  all  agree,  were  able  to  tell  their  own 
temporal  story.  For  example,  the  paratactical  Quid  agerem? 
Nesciebayn  (What  was  I  to  do  ?  I  had  no  idea)  becomes  Quid 
agerem,  nesciebam  (What  I  was  to  do,  I  had  no  idea).  Can  any 
one,  then,  seriously  suppose  that  a  Roman,  using  the  imperfect  in 
the  side-by-side  construction  Quid  agerem  ?  Nesciebam  because  it 
expressed  his  meaning,  would  in  the  composite  sentence  use  the 
imperfect  Quid  agerem  because  he  used  a  secondary  tense  in  the 
main  clause  ?  In  the  paratactical  form  quid  agerem  expressed 
that  which  he  had  to  say,  while  quid  agam  would  have  expressed 
an  entirely  different  thing,  which  he  didn't  at  all  want  to  say. 
Now,  in  the  composite  Quid  agerem,  nesciebam,  is  it  not  s# 
obvious  that  it  is  hardly  conceivable  that  there  should  ever  have 
been  any  occasion  for  a  paper  on  the  subject,  that  quid  agerem 
was  said,  and  not  quid  agam,  because  quid  agerem  expressed 
what  the  speaker  had  to  say,  while  quid  agam  would  have 
expressed  an  entirely  different  thing  ?  It  is,  in  point  of  fact,  not 
*credible  that  a  sweeping  doctrine  like  that  of  the  tenselessness  of 
all  dependent  subjunctives  could  ever  have  come  into  general 
acceptance  if  it  had  been  broached  to  a  generation  that  had  inter- 
ested itself  in  the  natural  history  of  the  subordinate  constructions. 

III. 

The  selection  of  examples  given  in  the  first  paper  showed  that 
any  combination  of  temporal  ideas  (main  and  subordinate)  that 
may  possibly  enter  into  a  healthy  brain  is  capable  of  expression 
in  Latin  (as  would  be  expected),  and  that,  when  the  combination  is 
an  unusual  one,  the  subordinate  verb  is,  alone  and  by  itself,  expres- 
sive of  temporal  relations  as  fully  as  an  independent  verb  would 
be.     To  this  position  no  denial  is  possible. 


35 

The  highly  probable  explanation  of  the  whole  field  of  phenomena, 
usual  and  unusual  alike,  was,  as  we  saw,  that  the  power  indubitably 
found  to  be  exercised  by  a  given  tense  in  a  given  construction  in 
an  unusual  combination  was  inherent  in  the  tense,  in  whatsoever 
combination,  usual  or  unusual.  Where,  as  in  the  present  case,  a 
cause  the  existence  of  which  is  absolutely  proved  will  account  for 
all  the  phenomena  observed,  it  is  bad  science  to  assume  the  exist- 
ence of  a  second  and  entirely  different  cause.  Further  than  this, 
it  was  shown  that  an  absurd  conclusion  would  follow  from  the 
adoption  of  the  theory  of  a  second  cause  in  these  phenomena,  viz. 
that  the  present  subjunctive  in  the  result-clause  is  incapable  of 
expressing  the  present  result  of  a  past  activity  immediately  upon 
the  conclusion  of  that  activity,  but  is  capable  of  expressing  the 
present  result  of  the  very  same  activity  ten  years  later. 

In  the  present  paper  it  has  also  been  shown  that  the  objections 
which  might  be  brought  against  the  theory  that  the  subjunctive 
has  temporal  expressiveness  disappear  under  examination.  The 
case  would  seem  to  me  to  be  made  out,  if  I  were  to  stop  here. 
Nevertheless,  I  can  conceive  that  a  doubt  in  regard  to  one  point 
may  remain  in  the  minds  of  some  of  those  who  have  held  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Sequence  of  Tenses,  and  that  a  subtilized  form  of  the 
doctrine  may  throw  up  an  intrenchment  in  their  minds  upon  this 
point ;  and  I  desire  to  show  that  no  possible  point  of  intrenchment 
exists. 

We  are  obliged  (they  may  say)  to  feel  the  living  force  of  the 
tense  in  the  unusual  constructions,  but  we  do  not  feel  it  in  the 
usual  constructions.  The  tense  must  clearly  originally  have  had, 
in  at  least  nearly  every  case,  the  power  which  we  see  it  displaying 
in  unusual  combinations ;  but  in  the  usual  combinations  it  seems 
to  us  to  have  become  a  mere  form — not  a  living  tense,  but  a 
speech-type. 

If  the  doctrine  of  the  Sequence  had  not  been  in  possession  of 
the  field  for  many  years,  the  burden  of  proof  would  not  fall 
upon  an  opponent  of  the  doctrine,  but  upon  its  supporters.  There 
are  very  strong  antecedent  objections  against  any  form  whatever 
in  which  it  may  be  held.  Let  us  consider  what  the  effect  of  sub- 
ordination is  upon  tense,  starting  from  the  Sprachgefiihl  of  a 
modern  language.  No  one  has  a  right  to  object  to  such  a  method, 
for,  even  though  the  modern  Sprachgefiihl  be  a  dangerous  tool  to 
handle,  it  is  absolutely  the  only  one  that  Heaven  has  vouchsafed 
us.     Compare  now  the  independent  deliberatives  in  English  and 


36 

Latin.  W/ia^  am  I  to  do  is  quid  agam,  what  was  I  to  do  is  quid 
agerem.  The  sole  difference  between  the  first  set  and  the  second 
hes  in  the  time  at  which  the  question  is  placed.  Quid  agerem  and 
quid  agam  differ  precisely  as  am,  and  was  differ,  and  in  no  other 
wise.  Whatever  be  the  history  of  the  tenses  of  the  Latin  subjunc- 
tive in  practical  use,  the  idea  of  the  present  lies  in  quid  agam,  as 
fully  and  strongly  as  in  what  am  I  to  do,  the  idea  of  the  past  in 
quid  agerem  as  fully  and  strongly  as  in  what  was  /  to  do.  Now 
let  these  sentences  be  attached  to  others,  and  we  have,  e.  g.,  I 
don't  know  what  I  am  to  do,  I  didri't  know  what  I  was  to  do, — quid 
agam  nescio,  quid  agerem  nesciebam.  Has  anything  happened  to 
destroy  the  activity  of  the  tenses  of  agam  and  agerem  f  The 
absolutely  identical  English  construction  has  kept  its  full  temporal 
power ;  the  am,  the  was  have  not  lost  their  meaning.  But  the 
am,  the  was  are  a  part  of  the  very  nature  of  quid  agam  and  quid 
agerem,.  What  ground  is  there  for  supposing  that  constructions 
absolutely  identical  in  two  languages,  passing  through  absolutely 
the  same  experience,  should  suffer  absolutely  opposite  fates? 
And  how,  there  being  no  conceivable  ground  whatever  for  such  a 
belief,  can  one  nevertheless  swear  'tis  so,  when  he  discovers  and 
admits  that  this  very  same  dependent  quid  agerem  does  retain  its 
full  force,  precisely  as  does  the  English  what  was  I  to  do,  when 
found  after  a  present : — IdiSkyou  what  /was  to  do,  quaero  a  tequid 
agerem  ?  The  last  thing  to  be  expected  is  that  these  fully  ex- 
pressive tenses  will  ever  become,  participial-like,  half  tenseless.* 
And  the  moment  they  are  found  with  undeniably  full  temporal 
meaning  in  any  construction  of  the  same  class,  it  is  sound  logic, 
and  the  only  sound  logic,  to  suppose  that  they  have  nowhere  lost 
their  temporal  expressiveness. 

This  applies  fully  and  without  reservation  to  a  construction  that 
has  remained  unchanged  in  nature,  like  the  deliberative.  But  it 
also  applies  with  equal  force  to  constructions  that  have  suffered 

*  The  fact  is  that  the  original  force  of  the  tenses  in  this  and  that  construction 
must  have  been  constantly  preserved  to  the  Roman  mind,  as  it  should  be  to 
that  of  the  modern  reader,  by  certain  related  constructions.  E.  g.  the  use  of 
the  jussive  subjunctive  without  introductory  particle  in  the  oratio  obliqiia  would 
keep  fresh  the  temporal  expressiveness  of  the  verb  in  those  subordinated  jussive 
forms  which  we  call  final  qui-  and  «//-clauses ;  the  frequent  collocation  of  the 
direct  jussive  and  the  corresponding  dependent  interrogative  form  (deliberative) 
would  keep  fresh  the  temporal  expressiveness  of  the  verb  of  the  latter,  as  in 
Plant.  Merc.  624-5  (an  "  exception  "  to  the  Law  of  the  Sequence,  by  the  way) : 
Quid  ego  facerem  ? — Quid  tu  faceres,  men  rogas?  Requireres,  rogitares  .  .  .;  etc. 


37 

some  change  of  nature,  unless  there  is  distinct  proof  that  this 
change  has  taken  place  in  the  temporal  power  itself.  The  jussive, 
e.  g.,  has  a  future  force,  the  present  placing  the  commanding  as 
thought  at  the  present  moment,  the  imperfect  as  thought  at  a  past 
moment.  The  construction,  once  independent,  in  time  becomes 
very  closely  subordinated,  but  the  future  force  is  precisely  that 
part  of  the  original  jussive  force  which  remains  unimpaired.  And 
so  the  argument  might  be  carried  on  through  all  the  constructions 
of  subordination.  It  could  be  shown  that  the  original  temporal 
force  remained  unimpaired  in  every  construction  except  that  of  a 
part  of  the  consecutive  clauses  ;  and  even  here  it  would  be  found 
that,  though  the  present  had  changed  its  force,  and  the  imperfect 
had  changed  its  force,  yet  they  had  held  to  their  power  of  saying, 
the  one  in  connection  with  this  present,  and  the  other  in  connection 
with  that  past  time  ;  and  that  each  was  ready  to  tell  its  individual 
story  in  any  company  of  main  verbs  whatsoever.^ 

But,  happily,  we  are  not  dependent  upon  antecedent  grounds, 
strong  though  they  are.  This  subtile  doctrine  that  the  subordinate 
tense  is  at  one  moment  living,  at  another  lifeless,  even  if  it  had 
probabilities  on  its  side,  could  be  confronted  with  entirely  suffi- 
cient indications  of  its  unsoundness.  Of  these  indications,  some 
are  themselves  subtile,  others  very  palpable. 

I.  The  historical  present  puts  a  past,  perhaps  a  very  remote,  act 
as  if  it  were  going  on  before  the  eyes  of  us,  the  readers.     It  is  as 

^  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  tenselessness  of  many  of  our  modern 
idioms  in  subordinate  clauses  has  done  much  to  blunt  our  sensitiveness  for  the 
temporal  expressiveness  of  the  corresponding  Latin  idioms.  For  the  relative 
final  clause  in  Plaut.  Trin.  740-41 :  non  temere  dicant  te  benignum  virgini : 
datam  tibi  dotem  ei  quam  darei  eius  a  patre^  our  common  phrase  would  be  to  give 
{they'd  say  a  dowry  had  been  given  to  you,  to  give  in  turn  to  her,  as  from  her 
father),  a  form  which  conveys  no  idea  of  the  place  of  the  plan  in  respect  of  the 
time  of  its  formati6n.  In  the  Latin,  however,  the  form  is  precisely  as  in 
daretis  and  quaereret  in  Ter.  Phorm.  296-7:  non  f  nit  necesse  habere  :  sed  id  quod 
lex  iubet,  dotem  daretis  ;  quaereret  alium  virum.  It  wasn't  necessary  to  take  her 
to  wife  :  the  thing  for  you  to  do,  as  the  law  enjoins,  was  to  give  her  a  dowry,  and 
the  thing  for  her  to  do  was  to  hunt  up  somebody  else  for  a  husband  (you  were  to  give, 
she  was  to  hunt  up — ex  post  facto  commands).  If,  now,  we  were  to  translate 
the  subordinate  jussive  clause  (so-called  final)  quam  dares  in  the  Trinummus 
by  the  same  formula  as  in  the  independent  jussive  daretis  in  the  Phormio 
{they'd  say  a  dozury  had  been  given  you,  which  you  were  to  give  to  her),  and  if 
we  similarly  everywhere  used,  in  Roman  fashion,  precisely  the  same  English 
form  for  a  given  dependent  construction  and  its  independent  form,  the  idea 
would  never  have  been  tolerated  that  the  dependent  subjunctives  in  Latin  are 
void  of  temporal  meaning. 


38 

if  we  sat  in  the  theatre  and  saw  the  things  of  long  ago  done  upon 
the  stage.  In  Livy's  story  of  what  followed  the  death  of  Lucretia, 
we  first  hear  the  solemn  oath  of  Brutus,  "  By  this  once  holy  blood 
I  swear  to  pursue  the  whole  brood  of  the  Tarquins."  We  see  him 
hand  the  knife  to  Collatinus,  to  Lucretius,  to  Valerius.  We  see 
them  repeat  his  oath.  Before  our  eyes  they  carry  the  body  to  the 
forum.  We  see  the  gathering  of  men,  their  lamentations,  and 
their  growing  fury.  It  is  not  history  that  is  given  us,  it  is  the 
mimic  stage.  Now,  these  stage-presents  are  followed  in  a  depend- 
ent clause  (say  a  final  clause)  now  by  a  primary  tense,  now  by  a 
secondary.  What  is  it  that  tells  us,  as  we  read,  whether  we  are  to 
keep  up  the  fiction  of  the  theatre,  and  wait  to  see  the  act  of  the 
final  clause,  say  the  intended  blow  of  a  murderer,  actually  per- 
formed upon  the  stage,  or  are  to  drop  the  illusion,  and  return  to 
the  fact  of  sober  narrative,  namely,  that  this  was  once  upon  a  time 
a  purpose  ?  It  is  nothing  but  the  verb  of  the  final  clause  itself. 
In  that  verb,  and  in  no  other,  lie.  or  do  not  lie,  the  directions.  The 
choice  of  the  subordinate  verb  is  itself  just  as  perfect  and  complete 
a  method  of  communication  between  writer  and  reader  as  is  the 
choice,  for  the  main  verb,  between  the  sober  aorist  and  the  stagy 
present.^ 

2.  The  Roman  has  but  one  word  for  the  aorist  and  the  present 
perfect.  As  we  read  a  complex  sentence  having  for  its  main  verb 
this  defectively  expressive  form,  what  is  it  that  tells  us  whether  the 
writer  thought  aorist  or  thought  present  perfect  ?  It  is  the  tense 
of  the  dependent  subjunctive.  However  it  may  have  come  to  its 
meaning,  it  is  gifted  with  power  to  tell  us  the  very  nature  of  the 
main  verb.     Here,  then,  the  tense  is  clearly  living. 

3.  The  present  perfect  is  capable,  whife  remaining  its  true  self, 
of  being  associated  with  either  primary  or,  as  in  the  final  clauses 
given  on  pp.  463-4,  with  secondary  tenses.  What  is  it  that  tells  us 
in  such  sentences  whether  the  speaker  puts  his  purpose  as  now 
entertained,  or  as  entertained  (say)  at  the  beginning  of  the  action  ? 
It  is,  not  the  inflexible  main  verb,  but  the  flexible  verb  of  the  sub- 
ordinate clause.     Here,  then,  the  tense  is  clearly  living. 

4.  In  impassioned  language  the  present  infinitive  is  often  used 
in  exclamations,  even  though  the  act  or  state  thought  of  lies  in 
the  past,  as  in  Ter.  Hec.  532  :  Adeone  pervicaci  esse  animo^  ut 

^  To  say,  as  Roby  does  (and  others  in  differing  phrases),  that  "  the  historical 
present  is,  in  its  effect  on  the  verbs  directly  or  indirectly  dependent  on  it, 
sometimes  regarded  as  a  primary,  sometimes  as  a  secondary  tense,"  is  to  con- 
tent oneself  with  words. 


39 

puerum  praeoptares  perire.  The  idea  of  your  being  so  obstinate 
that  you  preferred  that  the  boy  should  die  /  (the  tense  oi  praeoptares 
as  distinctly  tells  us  that  the  act  lies  in  the  past,  as  does  the  tense 
of  preferred  in  the  translation)  ;  Cic.  Sull.  20,  57 :  iam  vero  illud 
quam  iucredibile,  quam  absurdum,  qui  Romae  caedem  facere,  qui 
hanc  urbem  inflammare  vellet,  eum  familiarissimum  suuni 
dimittere  ab  se  et  amandare  in  ultimas  terras !  Then  too  how 
incredible y  how  absurd^  the  idea  of  his  being  dismissed  and  packed 
off  to  the  end  of  the  world  by  the  man  who  wanted  to  butcher 
people  in  Rome,  who  wanted  to  set  this  city  on  fire  I 

Here,  again,  it  is  not  the  main  verb,  but  the  subordinate  verb 
that  tells  the  temporal  story.  The  speaker  relies  wholly  upon  the 
subordinate  verb  for  the  conveying  of  the  time  of  the  whole 
sentence. 

5.  But  the  case  is  even  stronger  than  this.  For  the  number  of 
sentences  in  Latin  is  very  great  in  which  there  is  no  main  verb 
whatever,  and  the  entire  burden  of  the  expression  of  time  falls  upon 
the  subordinate  verb,  as  in  Ten  Phorm.  364-7 :  Saepe  interea 
mihi  senex  narrabat  se  hunc  neclegere  cognatum  suom.  At  quern 
virum  !  quern  ego  viderim  in  vita  optumurn.  The  old  man  used 
now  and  then  to  tell  me  that  this  relative  of  his  was  treating  him 
shabbily.  But  what  a  ma7i !  the  best  I  have  seen  in  all  my  life ; 
Juv.  157-8:  O  qualis  fades  et  qziali  digna  tabella  cu7n  Gaetula 
duceni  portaret  belua  luscum.  What  a  sight,  what  a  subject  for  a 
painting  whe?t  the  monster  from  Gaetulia  was  carrying  on  his  back 
the  great  general — minus  one  eye;  Cic.  Quinct.  26,  80:  O  homi- 
nem  foriunatum,  qui  (see  how  we  wait  for  the  verb  to  give  us  our 
temporal  conception)  eius  modi  nuntios  sen  potius  Pegasos  habeat ! 
O  happy  man,  that  has  such  messengers  or  rather  winged  horses  ! 
In  Cic.  pro  Arch.  10,  24  :  O  forturiate,  inquit,  adulescens,  qui 
tuae  virtutis  Homerum  praeconem  inveneris,  the  subjunctive 
inveneris  conveys  the  temporal  idea  for  the  whole  sentence  as 
perfectly  as  does  the  indicative  attulisti  in  Cic.  Flacc.  40,  102  :  O 
nox  ilia,  quae  paene  aeternas  huic  urbi  tenebras  attulisti,  and  the 
indicative  viroKplveTaL   in  Aristoph.   Acharn.   400-1  :  'G  rpia-fiaKapt 

'EvpiTriBrj,   06    6   bovkos    ovrcoal    (ro(f)S)S    vTroKpii/erai.      So,  then,    it  IS    not 

necessary,  in  order  that  the  tense  should  carry  to  the  mind  a  dis- 
tinct temporal  meaning,  that  it  should  follow  a  verb  in  whose 
company  one  is  surprised  to  find  it.  The  subordinate  verb  is 
capable,  not  only  of  piecing  out  the  defective  temporal  expression 
of  the  main  verb,  as  under  4  above,  but  even  of  getting  along 


40 

entirely  without  it — of  doing  the  entire  work  of  temporal  expres- 
sion for  the  whole  sentence. 

6.  A  subordinate  verb  which,  on  the  theory  of  the  Sequence, 
accepts  its  tense  from  the  main  verb,  nevertheless,  upon  that  same 
theory,  may,  and  mostly  does,  force  its  own  dependent  verb 
according  to  its  will,  and,  breaking  it  off  from  all  dependence  upon 
the  main  verb,  dictate  to  it  what  its  tense  shall  be ;  in  other  words, 
to  use  a  homely  but  scientifically  exact  phrase,  it  is  only  "playing 
dead,"  as  in  Cic.  Ros.  Am.  14,  141  :  Quaeramus  quae  tanta  vitia 
fuerint  in  unico  filio^  quare  /^/^/r/displiceret.  Let  us  inquire  what 
great  faults  there  were  in  this  only  son,  that  would  make  him 
obnoxious  to  his  father. 

To  grant  to  the  subordinate  tense  the  power  of  expressing  in 
usual  combinations  the  same  meaning  that  it  expresses  in  unusual 
combinations  is  a  much  easier  postulate  than  to  refuse  to  it  the 
power  to  express  meaning  in  itself,  while  conceding  to  it  the  power 
to  dictate  to  another  subjunctive  what  its  tense  shall  be. 

7.  If  we  can  find  some  indicative  construction  which,  in  passing 
into  the  subjunctive  in  the  indirect  discourse,  would  need  to  change 
its  tense  if  there  is  a  Law  of  the  Sequence,  we  can  get  an  absolute 
settlement  of  the  whole  question  by  watching  its  behavior.  Such 
a  construction  is  to  be  found  in  the  common  use  of  the  aorist  in 
temporal  clauses  introduced  by  ubi,  ut,  postquam  and  siniul  atque, 
as  in  Cic.  Fam.  5,  2, 4 :  Postea  vero  quam  profectus  es,  velim  recor- 
derCy  quae  ego  de  te  in  senatu  egerim,  quae  in  contionibus  dixerim, 
quas  ad  te  litteras  miserim. 

When  such  a  clause  is  thrown  into  the  indirect  discourse  and 
made  dependent  upon  a  past  tense,  then,  if  the  theory  is  true 
that  dependent  verbs  have  no  temporal  expressiveness,  the  depend- 
ent verb  which  we  are  watching  will  go  into  the  pluperfect  sub- 
junctive, losing  its  peculiar  individuality  of  expression ;  whereas  if 
the  theory  is  true  that  the  dependent  verb  has  an  unimpaired 
power  of  temporal  expression  in  and  of  itself,  our  dependent  verb 
will  be  found  doing  in  the  indirect  discourse  precisely  what  it  did 
in  the  direct  discourse,  unchanged  in  tense,  affected  in  no  respect 
whatever  except  that  of  mood.  But  everybody  knows  that,  while 
in  perhaps  one  case  in  ten  the  pluperfect  is  found,  just  as  it 
is  in  the  independent  construction  (cf.  Liv.  43,  6,  8  :  hoc  etiam 
Lampsace?ii,  octoginta  pondo  coronam  adferentes  petebant,  com- 
memorantes  discessisse  se  a  Perseo,  postquam  Romanus  exercitus 
in  Macedoniam  venisset,  with  Liv.  44,  25,  9 :   iibi  ad  pecuniae 


41 

mentio7ie77t  ventum  erat,  tbi  haesltabat),  in  the  other  nine  cases  it  is 
the  unchanged  perfect  that  we  find,  as  in  Liv.  i,  i,  7  :  alii proelio 
vicium  Latinuni  pacem  cum  Aenea,  deinde  adfiyiitatcm  iunxisse 
tradunt ;  alii,  cum  instructae  acies  cons  litis  senty  priusquam  signa 
canerent,  processisse  Latinum  inter  primores  ducemqtce  adve- 
narum  evocasse  ad  conloquium ;  percunctatum  deinde,  qui  mor- 
teles  essent,  unde  aul  quo  casu  profecli  domo  quidve  quaerentes  in 
agru77t   Latirentinum  exissent,  postquam  audierit  mullitudinem 

Troianos  esse,  due  em  Aeneam,  .  .  »fidem  futurae  amicitiae  sanx- 
isse.  .  .  .  others  have  the  version  that  Latinus  inquired  who  they 
were,  etc.,  and,  when  he  heard  (not  had  heard')  that  they  were 

Trojans  .  .  .  gave  by  the  offer  of  his  hand  a  solemn  bond  of  peace 
for  the  future ;  Cic.  Rep.  2,  2,  4 :  is  igitur,  ut  natus  sit,  cum 
Remofratre  dicilur  ab  Amulio  rege  Albano  ob  labefactandi  regni 
iimorem  ad  Tiberim  exponi  iussus  esse ;  Fam.  4,  3,  4 :  ta7itum 
dicam,  quod  te  spero  adprobaturum,  me  postea  quam  illi  arti,  cui 
studuerain,  nihil  esse  loci  neque  in  curia  neque  in  foro  viderim, 
omnem  meam  curam  atque  operam  ad  philosophiam  contulisse. 
Fam.  5,  8,  3 :  de  me  sic  existimes  ac  tibi  persuadeas  vehe77ie7iter 
velim,  non  me  repentina  aliqua  volu7itate  aut  fortuito  ad  tuam 
amplitudinem  meis  officiis  amplectendam  incidisse,  sed,  ut  primum 
forum  attigerim,  spectasse  semper ^  ut  tibi  possem  qua7n  maxima 
esse  coniunctus. 

In  the  same  way,  when  the  common  phrase  non  putaram  goes 
into  the  subjunctive  in  the  oratio  obliqua,  it  preserves  its  individu- 
ahty  of  tense,  as  in  Cic.  Sen.  2,  4 :  obrepere  aiunt  earn  citius  quam. 
putasscnl;  Att.  6,  i,  6;  and  frequently.  No  more  absolute  proof 
of  the  temporal  expressiveness  of  the  attached  subjunctive  verb 
could  be  desired  than  is  given  by  these  usages.^ 

» 
IV. 

The  destructive  part  of  my  task  has  taken  so  much  space  that 

*A  complete  survey  of  existing  views  would  include  a  discussion  of  the 
application  of  the  doctrine  of  Absolute  and  Relative  Time  to  the  field  of  the 
supposed  sequence.  The  limits  of  the  present  paper  exclude  such  discussion. 
What  has  been  said  above,  however,  in  regard  to  a  possible  subtilized  theory 
applies  a  fortiori  to  the  coarser  theory  of  Absolute  and  Relative  Time  ;  nor 
have  I  any  fear  that  a  reader  who  has  agreed  with  me  thus  far  will  find  a 
resting-place  in  that  doctrine. 

At  a  future  day  I  hope  to  show  that  the  doctrine  is  untenable.  Nevertheless 
it  has  performed,  especially  in  Germany,  the  good  service  of  weakening 
popular  faith  in  the  universal  tmth  of  the  old  doctrine. 


42 

I  am  obliged  to  state  the  constructive  part  in  very  summary 
fashion. 

With  certain  exceptions,  each  tense  of  the  indicative  indicates 
to  the  hearer  two  things,  the  stage  of  advancement  of  the  action 
(whether  it  be  complete,  in  process,  or  yet  to  be),  and  the  position 
in  time  of  the  point  of  view  from  which  the  act  is  regarded  (whether 
it  be  somewhere  in  the  past,  at  the  moment  of  speaking,  or  some- 
where in  the  future).  In  each  of  the  three  verbs  {domiis)  aedificaia 
erat,  aedificaia  est,  aedificaia  erii,  the  house  is  presented  in  a 
completed  state,  the  point  of  view  alone  changing.  These  verbs 
are,  to  use  a  more  exact  nomenclature  than  the  one  in  vogue, 
respectively  pasi  perfect,  present  perfect,  future  perfect.  In  the 
same  way  aedificabatur,  aedificatur,  aedificabitur  represent  an 
action  in  process  in  the  past,  at  the  present,  in  the  future  ;  or,  more 
exactly,  these  verbs  are  respectively  past  imperfect,  present  imper- 
fect,/w/z/r^  imperfect.  In  the  three  verbs  aedificaturus  erat,  aedi- 
ficaiurus  est,  aedificaturus  erit  we  have,  similarly,  a  past  future,  a 
present  future,  and  a  future  future. 

Now,  these  indications  in  themselves  convey  each  two  things 
only  :  i.  The  point  of  view  of  the  mind  asserting  ;  2.  The  stage 
of  the  action  at  that  point  of  view.  But  a  third  conception 
necessarily  enters  in.  If  an  act  can  be  asserted  to  be  in  a  com- 
plete state  at  a  certain  time  in  the  past,  it  is  a  certainty  that  the 
activity  had  been  prior  to  the  time  thought  of  as  the  standpoint. 
The  idea  of  the  priority  of  the  act  to  the  standpoint  is,  then, 
practically  conveyed  by  the  three  perfect  tenses.  In  the  same 
way,  if  an  act  is  asserted  as  in  process  at  a  certain  time  in  the 
past,  it  is  inevitable  that  the  activity  was  contemporaneous  with  the 
time  thought  of  as  the  standpoint.  The  three  imperfect  tenses, 
then,  convey,  in  addition  to  standpoint  and  stage  of  action,  a  third 
idea,  that  of  contemporaneousness.  Each  of  these  six  tenses  thus 
practically  carries  three  distinct  ideas  to  the  hearer's  mind  :  i.  The 
point  of  view  from  which  the  speaker  puts  the  act ;  2.  The  stage 
of  advancement  of  the  act  at  that  point  of  view  ;  and  3.  The 
temporal  relation  of  the  activity  itself  to  that  point  of  view. 

The  subjunctive  likewise  is  furnished  with  tenses  which  indicate 
that  the  point  of  view  from  which  the  act  is  seen  in  imagination  is 
in  the  past  or  at  the  present,  and  that  the  act  is  seen  as  complete, 
or  is  seen  without  reference  to  completion  (the  past  complete  and 
present  complete,  the  past  non-complete  and  present  non-com- 
plete).    In  other  words,  the  subjunctive  tenses  indicate  standpoint 


43 

and  stage.  So  far  they  are  like  the  indicative  tenses.  But  they 
go  no  farther.  The  idea  of  the  temporal  relation  of  the  activity 
to  the  standpoint,  of  its  being  before,  or  being  at,  or  being  after 
the  standpoint,  cannot,  in  the  very  nature  of  the  mood,  be  involved. 
If,  at  the  present  moment,  I  form  a  picture  in  my  brain  of  (say)  a 
book  completed,  there  is  absolutely  nothing  in  the  tense  that  can 
fix  the  act  at  any  point  between  the  beginning  of  time  and  the  end 
of  time.  The  vision  of  the  completed  book  may  be  of  a  book 
said  to  have  been  made  long  ago,  or  it  may  be  of  a  book  which  I 
hope  to  have  in  completed  shape  ten  years  hence.  The  point  of 
view  is  definite  and  exact ;  but  from  the  very  fact  that  there  is  no 
assertion  of  outward  reality  in  the  subjunctive  mood,  but  merely  an 
imagining  of  an  act,  no  exact  placing  of  the  act  here  or  there  in  time 
is  possible.  It  follows  that  a  form  like  scripius  sit,  e.  g.,  which  is  in 
its  earliest  history  a  parallel  of  neither  the  perfect  indicative  nor  of 
the  future  perfect  indicative,  but  merely  a  vision  of  a  finished  act, 
is  used  to  represent  what  corresponds  in  the  subjunctive  to  both 
these  very  different  forms.  I  may  say,  for  example,  ab  Homero 
scripta  sit  {suppose  that  Homer  did  write  the  Iliad),  and,  by  the 
same  tense,  sit  deiiique  inscriptum  ifi  f  route  unius  cuiusque  quid 
de  re  public  a  seniiat.  Cic.  Cat.  i,  13,  32  (be  //written  on  every 
man's  forehead  whether  he  is  loyal  or  disloyal').  In  the  same  way 
the  past  non-complete  subjunctive  facerem  and  the  present  non- 
complete  subjunctive  faciam  strictly  present  to  the  mind  only  a 
vision  of  an  act  without  reference  to  completion,  seen  from  a  past 
and  a  present  standpoint  respectively.  In  these  tenses,  however, 
we  find  a  certain  necessary  limitation.  The  activity  is  not  thought 
as  lying  back  of  the  standpoint,  for  then  the  tense  used  would  be 
one  of  the  perfects.  But  further  than  this  there  is  no  limit.  The 
non-complete  act  seen  in  imagination  as  from  the  present  moment 
may  belong  anywhere  in  the  stretch  from  the  present  moment  in- 
clusive to  the  end  of  time,  and  the  act  similarly  seen  as  non-com- 
plete from  a  past  standpoint  may  belong  anywhere  in  the  stretch 
from  that  time  on  to  the  end  of  time.  In  other  words,  the  sub- 
junctive tenses  of  non-complete  action  can  apply  to  any  act  present 
to  or  future  to  the  standpoint.' 

*  In  this  immediate  power  of  application  to  the  speaker's  future  lies  the 
explanation  of  the  fact  that  no  new  and  specialized  subjunctives  from  a  future 
standpoint  have  arisen  ;  and  herein  also  is  the  origin  of  the  temporal  power 
of  the  so-called  indicatives  of  the  future,  themselves  no  indicatives  originally, 
but  (to  speak  as  a  Latinist)  subjunctives. 


44 

The  subjunctive  tenses,  then,  indicate,  like  the  indicative  tenses, 
the  point  of  view  from  which  the  act  is  put  as  pictured  in  the 
brain,  and  the  sta^o^e  of  advancement  in  which  the  act  is  represented 
to  be ;  but  they  here  part  company  with  the  indicative,  and  are 
incapable  of  expressing  the  temporal  relation  of  priority,  contem- 
poraneousness, or  futurity  to  the  standpoint.  The  complete  tenses 
can  apply  to  any  act  seen  as  complete  anywhere  in  the  whole  range 
of  time ;  while  the  non-complete  tenses  can  apply  to  any  act  seen 
as  non-complete  at  or  after  the  standpoint. 

So  much,  and  only  so  much,  is  inherent  in  the  nature  of  the 
subjunctive  tenses.  But  in  their  actual  use  in  conveying  this  or 
that  idea,  a  temporal  feeling  inevitably  grows  up  with  regard  to 
each  use  of  each  of  them.  In  thinking 'a  realizable  wish  or  a 
command  (the  point  of  view  being  of  course  the  speaker's  present) 
we  have  a  mental  vision  of  the  act  as  lying  in  the  future  (whether 
immediate  or  remote) ;  and  the  hearer,  getting  our  idea,  naturally 
associates  futurity  with  the  tense  of  the  verb.  In  making  a  con- 
cession from  the  present  point  of  view,  on  the  other  hand,  we 
mostly  have  in  mind  a  present  act  or  state,  or  an  act  or  state  com- 
pleted by  or  before  the  present ;  and  the  hearer,  getting  our  idea, 
naturally  associates  contemporaneousness  or  priority,  as  the  case 
may  be,  with  the  tense  of  the  verb.  In  this  way  there  arise  two 
distinct  accretions  of  meaning  for  each  subjunctive  tense — significa- 
tions not  inherent  in  the  nature  of  the  tense,  but  naturally  involved 
in  the  special  kind  of  idea  which  the  tense  is  used  to  convey.  The 
so-called  perfect  subjunctive  serves  as  an  aorist  or  present  perfect, 
and  also  as  a  future  perfect ;  the  so-called  present  serves  both  as  a 
present  and  as  a  future;  and,  in  the  same  way,  the  so-called 
pluperfect  serves  as  a  past  perfect  and  as  a  past  future  perfect,  the 
so-called  imperfect  as  a  past  present  and  a  past  future.  In  other 
words,  in  practical  use  each  tense  of  the  subjunctive  is  found  to  be 
employed  with  two  distinct  ideas,  one  that  which  is  indicated  by 
the  tense  of  the  indicative  bearing  the  same  name  (as  in  indirect 
questions),  the  other  a  future  idea  (as  in  the  final  clause,  commands 
in  indirect  discourse,  etc.) ;  so  that  the  so-called  pluperfect  and 
the  so-called  perfect  serve,  from  their  respective  standpoints,  as 
either  perfect  or  future  perfect,  and  the  so-called  imperfect  and 
present  serve  from  their  respective  standpoints  as  either  present  or 
future. 

With  each  subjunctive  construction,  then,  there  is  in  time  associ- 
ated a  definite  temporal  meaning,  seen  clearly  in  the  independent 


.    45 

construction,  and  abiding  in  the  dependent  use  of  it.  The  jussive, 
e.  g.,  refers  to  a  time  future  to  the  standpoint,  and  its  dependent 
application  (the  final  clause)  expresses  a  present  purpose  (present 
subjunctive),  or  a  past  purpose  (imperfect  subjunctive).  And  in 
the  same  way  a  definite  temporal  meaning  is  found  to  be  attached 
to  each  subjunctive  dependent  construction  that  has  grown  out  of 
an  independent  subjunctive  construction,  while  in  each  dependent 
subjunctive  construction  that  is  a  conversion  (the  indirect  discourse) 
of  the  indicative  construction,  the  meaning  is  precisely  the  same 
as  in  the  indicative ;  the  clause  quid  scripsisset^  e.  g.,  meaning 
precisely  the  same  thing,  so  far  as  anything  but  mood  goes,  as 
quid  scripserat. 

Now,  how  to  bring  this  to  bear  for  a  beginner  ?  First  make  him 
understand  precisely  what  the  indicatives  convey  to  the  mind. 
Then  show  him,  by  giving  him  parallel  examples  in  the  direct 
question  and  the  indirect  question,  that  the  tenses  of  the  subjunc- 
tive convey  precisely  the  same  mental  standpoint,  or  point  of  view, 
as  the  tenses  of  the  indicative  bearing  the  same  name.  Have  this 
idea  of  the  standpoint  very  clearly  felt  by  the  pupil.  Then,  in  no 
haste,  show  him  by  examples  that  each  tense  of  the  subjunctive, 
beside  the  force  corresponding  to  that  of  the  indicative  bearing  the 
same  name,  has  a  future  force,  as  in  the  purpose  clause,  the  stand- 
point always  remaining  unchanged.  Add  to  that  the  statement 
that,  by  a  peculiar  development,  the  tenses  for  conditions,  conclu- 
sions, and  wishes  put  as  from  a  past  standpoint  came  to  convey 
the  idea  of  conditions,  conclusions,  and  wishes  contrary  to  fact,  in 
Latin  as  in  English,  and  that  by  another  peculiar  development  the 
imperfect  came  to  express  past  results  in  their  temporal  relation 
with  their  causes,  and  you  have  a  practical  treatment  covering  the 
entire  ground.  For  the  converse  work  of  writing  Latin,  tell  the 
student  to  use  a  pluperfect  or  imperfect  to  indicate  that  the  point 
of  view  is  past,  i.  e.,  if  it  is  a  past  purpose,  a  past  question,  a  past 
ground  of  action,  and  so  on ;  and  a  perfect  or  present  to  indicate 
that  the  point  of  view  is  present  or  future,  i.  e.,  if  it  is  a  present 
purpose,  a  present  question,  a  present  ground  of  action,  etc.  Make 
him  see  that  our  use  of  tenses  in  English  is  mostly  the  same,  alike 
in  independent  and  in  dependent  sentences,  as,  e.g.,  in  the  coordi- 
nated What  was  she  trying  to  tell  me  f  I  had  no  idea,  and  the 
subordinating  /  had  7io  idea  what  she  was  trying  to  tell  me. 

This  is  all  simple  enough,  and  young  children,  provided  they 
have  not  been  taught  a  rule  that  "  primary  tenses  are  followed  by 


46 

primary,"  etc.,  have,  as  has  been  proved  by  actual  experiment  per- 
formed by  other  teachers  under  my  own  eyes  and  at  a  distance,  no 
difficuhy  in  understanding  it  in  an  entirely  real  and  unmechanical 
way.  But  no  one  can  venture  to  make  such  a  statement  as  regards 
the  practical  working  of  the  rule  about  primary  tenses  being 
followed  by  secondary,  and  the  rest.  Understanding  is  precisely 
the  thing  that  cannot  be  claimed  for  those  mental  processes  in 
interpreting  and  writing  Latin  tenses  which  the  grammars  aim 
to  set  up  in  the  learner's  mind.  The  directions  which  I  have 
given  above,  though  they  take  the  student  only  part  way  on  the 
road  toward  a  complete  theoretical  understanding  of  the  whole 
matter,  are  sound  as  far  as  they  go,  and  calculated  to  develop 
understanding,  needing  only  to  be  filled  out  at  a  later  day ;  while 
the  ordinary  rules,  which  are  founded  on  nothing  but  a  count  of 
examples,  are  calculated  to  beget  a  self-contented  mental  vacuity, 
and  must  be  wholly  swept  away  before  any  true  comprehension 
can  be  brought  about. 

If,  in  opposition,  it  is  urged  that  students  must  have  the  rule  of 
the  Sequence  in  order  to  write  Latin,  I  should  answer,  first,  that 
they  do  not  handle  their  tenses  so  successfully  at  present,  even 
under  the  help  of  the  Law,  as  to  justify  any  white  lies ;  secondly, 
that  a  man  who  hits  the  right  tense  by  a  rule  of  thumb  without 
understanding  or  feeling,  writes  better  Latin  but  is  not  a  better 
man;  thirdly,  that,  though  the  uses  are  essentially  the  same  in 
German  and  French,  one  who  should  attempt  to  introduce  a 
doctrine  of  a  Sequence  as  indispensable  in  learning  to  write  those 
languages  would  be  derided  ;  and,  lastly,  I  should  call  attention  to 
the  fact  that  the  rule  of  the  Sequence  very  frequently  betrays  the 
student.  Every  teacher  must  have  had  the  experience  of  correcting, 
under  a  hidden  linguistic  impulse,  such  as  will  sometimes  rise  above 
the  grammars,  a  Latin  tense  written  by  a  student  in  entire  confor- 
mity to  the  rule,  but  conveying  a  wholly  different  idea  from  the 
English  which  it  is  meant  to  represent.  Suppose,  for  example,  I 
ask  a  student  to  express  in  Latin,  under  the  "  Law,"  what  ivas  the 
character  of  the  state  at  that  time,  and  what  had  it  been  tip  to  that 
time  f  He  will  write,  with  perfect  feeling  for  the  tenses,  qualis  erat 
illo  tempore  civitas,  et  qualis  antea  fuerat.  Suppose,  now,  I  ask 
him  to  write  in  Latin  let  us  see,  in  Cato's  own  words,  what  was  the 
character  of  the  state  at  that  tivte,  and  what  it  had  been  before  thai 
time.  He  will  not  dare  to  write  qualis  esset  illo  te^jipore  civitas^  et 
antea  qualis  fuisset,  videamus  in  ipsa  sententia  Catonis,  as  a  student 


47 

who  knew  nothing  about  a  Sequence  oT  Tenses  would,  and  as  St. 
Augustine,  who  also  had  the  advantage  of  being  in  ignorance  of 
the  rule,  did,  in  De  Civ.  Dei,  5,  12 ;  neither  would  he  dare  to  write 
though  the  battle  lasted  till  evening,  nobody  could  catch  sight  of  an 
enemy's  back,  as  Caesar  did  in  B.  G.  i,  26. 

V. 

And  now  a  brief  last  word  about  the  history  and  the  hopes  of  the 
doctrine  here  professed,  that  the  tenses  of  the  subordinated  sub- 
junctives are  expressive,  not  mechanically  dictated  by  a  preceding 
verb  ;  that  they  mean  the  same  thing,  tell  the  same  story,  as 
the  tenses  of  the  corresponding  independent  indicatives  or  inde- 
pendent subjunctives. 

In  1872  Lieven  (Die  Consecutio  Temporum  bei  Cicero),  laying 
down  the  traditional  rules  for  the  Sequence,  proved  by  examples 
that  consecutive,  causal,  concessive  and  relative  sentences  (not 
final)  are  exempt  from  the  law  when  following  secondary  tenses, 
and  that  unreal  conditional  sentences  are  exempt  from  the  law 
when  following  primary  tenses.  Other  apparent  exceptions  he 
accounted  for  on  the  theory  of  "  pregnant "  uses  of  the  main 
tense.  His  dictum  ("  The  tense  chosen  in  the  subordinate  sentence 
is  that  which  would  have  to  be  chosen  if  the  sentence  were  inde- 
pendent ")  would  have  been  a  complete  statement  of  the  matter, 
if  it  had  been  intended  to  be  thoroughgoing.  In  point  of  fact, 
however,  he  limits  it  to  the  cases  above  mentioned.  The  way  in 
which  he  went  astray  is  clear :  he  treats  the  subjunctive  in  the 
main  as  a  mere  mood  of  subordination.  As  he  glances  back  over 
the  growth  of  the  language  from  the  paratactic  to  the  hypotactic 
stage,  he  sees  independent  indicatives  becoming  subjunctives,  and 
retaining  their  tense  ;  and  so  far  he  sees  quite  rightly.  But  he 
fails  to  see  the  great  part  which  is  played  by  the  passing  over  of 
independent  subjunctive  constructions  into  the  dependent  form. 
And,  in  so  doing,  he  not  only  misleads  himself  in  regard  to  the 
history  of  the  subjunctive  causal,  concessive,  and  consecutive  sen- 
tences (all  of  which,  as  I  hope  to  show  in  a  later  paper,  go  back 
to  independent  subjunctives^,  assuming  them  to  be  substantially 
merely  subordinated  indicatives,  but  also  draws  his  line  of  limita- 
tion for  the  exceptions  very  far  short  of  the  true  point,  and  leaves 
the  old  rules  in  the  main  standing.  In  spite  of  this,  however,  the 
method  he  applied  ends  logically  in  the  destruction  of  the  traditional 
doctrine,  though  he  himself  failed  to  see  its  full  sweep. 


48 

Five  years  later,  Martin  Wetzel,  In  his  doctorate-dissertation 
(Goettingen),  said  in  his  preface  that  the  force  and  meaning  of  each 
tense  was  the  same  in  the  subjunctive  as  in  the  indicative,  so  that 
the  question  why  this  and  that  tense  was  found  to  have  been 
employed  did  not  turn  upon  a  Law  of  Sequence,  but  upon  the  force 
inherent  in  each ;  and  that,  consequently,  to  speak  accurately, 
there  was  no  such  thing  as  a  Sequence  of  Tenses.  The  statement 
is  in  reality  nothing  more  than  Lieven's  statement  more  effectively 
put,  but  subject  to  the  same  errors  and  limitations.'  The  exami- 
nation is  confined  to  an  analysis  of  the  uses  of  the  tenses  in  subjunc- 
tives which  are  such  by  reason  of  being  in  the  indirect  discourse, 
and  to  certain  changes  of  tenses  of  other  subjunctives  in  the 
indirect  discourse  after  a  main  verb  of  one  and  another  tense ;  and 
does  not  take  up  the  question  of  the  force  of  the  tenses  in  de- 
pendent subjunctives  corresponding  to  independent  subjunctives.^ 
And  Wetzel's  subsequent  work  should  have  carried  him  on, 
through  a  wider  survey  of  the  field,  to  the  doctrine  that  the  tenses 
of  the  subjunctives  in  dependent  constructions  convey  the  same 
meaning  as  the  tenses  of  the  subjunctives  or  indicatives,  which- 
ever it  may  be,  in  the  corresponding  independent  constructions. 
But,  as  we  shall  shortly  see,  he  did  not  attain  to  this  doctrine. 

In  1882  Ihm,  in  his  Quaestiones  Syntacticae  de  Elocutione 
Tacitea  comparato  Caesaris  Sallusti  Vellei  Usu  Loquendi  (Giessen), 
finds  the  solution  of  the  whole  problem  in  the  application  of  the 
doctrine  of  Absolute  and  Relative  Time — that  doctrine,  taught  by 
Hoffmann  and  supported  by  Llibbert,  which  has  been  so  potent 
in  Germany  and  America,  for  good  or  for  evil,  since  the  appear- 
ance in  1870  of  the  latter's  Die  Syntax  von  Quom.  Ihm  was 
followed  in  1884  by  Lattmann  and  Miiller  in  their  Kurzgefasste 
Lateinische  Grammatik,  and  in  1885  Wetzel,  in  his  Beitrage  zur 
Lehre  von  der  Consecutio  Temporum,  amends,  and,  as  amended, 
accepts  the  doctrine  of  Lattmann  and  Miiller.  The  same  man, 
then,  who  in  1877  said,  at  the  end  of  his  university  career,  the 
best  thing  that  had  then  been  said  on  the  subject,  and  was  distinctly 

'  Cf.  also,  from  the  preface,  p.  6,  the  following:  Ac  deliberanti  mihisaepenu- 
mero  in  eo  potissimum  omnium  errorum  fons  et  causa  posita  esse  visa  est,  quod 
temporum  consecutionem  illud  efficere,  ut  tempora  in  coniunctivo  enuntia- 
torum  secundariorum  non  omni  ex  parte  eandem  vim  retineant  quam  in  indica- 
tive habent,  sed  sola  verbi  regentis  forma  definiantur,  plerique  opinantur. 

2  The  force  of  the  tense  of  the  subjunctive  in  the  dependent  deliberative 
question,  the  original  consecutive  clause,  the  final  clause,  is  not  the  same  as 
the  force  of  any  existing  indicative  construction. 


49 

on  the  right  road,  has  led  himself  into  the  cloudland  of  Absolute 
and  Relative  Time.  Meanwhile,  however,  Hermann  Kluge,  of 
the  Gymnasium  at  Cothen,  published  in  1883  a  treatise  of  great 
importance,  Die  Consecutio  Temporum,  deren  Grundgesetz  und 
Erscheinungen  im  Lateinischen.^ 

In  this  treatise  Kluge,  omnia  ad  se  trahens,  ignores  the  great 
suggestiveness  of  Lieven's  and  Wetzel's  partial  proposition  of  the 
years  1872  and  1877 ;  ignores  the  very  great  contribution  to  a 
proper  psychological  treatment  of  the  general  question  and  the 
explanation  of  important  details  given  by  Otto  Behaghel  in  1878  in 
the  treatise  already  cited  ;  and  ignores  the  very  helpful  statement 
of  the  general  nature  of  the  indicative  and  subjunctive  tenses 
given  by  Haase  in  the  second  volume  of  the  Vorlesungen  iiber 
lateinische  Sprachwissenschaft  (edited  by  Hermann  Peter,  1880). 
Further,  he  is  astray,  me  iudice,  in  very  many  important  details, 
which  I  have  space  barely  to  enumerate  in  part,  without  dis- 
cussion :  The  theory  that  the  imperfect  and  pluperfect  subjunctive 
are  originally  tenseless,  differing  from  the  present  and  perfect 
only  in  presenting  a  more  remotely  conceived  idea ;  the  theory, 
naturally  connected  with  this,  that  the  use  of  the  imperfect  and 
pluperfect  in  wishes,  conclusions,  and  conditions  referring  to  the 
speaker's  present  is  not  derived,  but  original — a  view  which  would 
find  it  hard  to  reckon  with  the  indisputable  origin  of  the  imperfect 
and  pluperfect  indicative  referring  to  the  same  time  in  cases  like 
oporfuerat,  oportebat^  and  the  analogy  of  the  history  of,  e.  g. 
auxiliaries  like  the  English  would,  should,  might  (preterites),  and 

'A  word  of  personal  explanation  must  at  this  point  be  granted  me.  The 
doctrine  of  this  paper  I  taught,  somewhat  timorously,  as  became  a  young 
instructor,  as  early  as  the  years  1877,  1878,  and  1879,  ^^^^  with  emphasis  since 
the  year  1880,  when  I  was  called  to  another  university  and  to  a  position  of 
responsibility.  It  was  my  purpose  to  publish  and  advocate  my  doctrine  at  the 
earliest  possible  moment,  but  in  the  press  of  duties  I  allowed  the  years  lo  slip 
by,  and  was  obliged  to  see  the  main  tenet  of  my  belief  first  printed  in  Kluge's 
book.  As  will  appear  below,  I  regard  Kluge's  treatment  to  be  in  many  respects 
unsound;  but  the  essential  doctrine  is  true,  that  the  tense  of  the  subordinate 
verb  is  the  direct  expression  of  the  speaker's  meaning.  Anticipated,  then,  in 
date  of  promulgation,  and  quite  possibly  even  in  actual  length  of  years  of 
possession  of  these  views,  I  avow  myself  a  supporter  of  Kluge,  and  a  preacher 
of  his  faith.  The  question  of  priority  of  publication  is,  at  the  present  point  in 
the  development  of  human  nature,  of  much  interest  to  the  individual,  but  it  is 
of  little  consequence  to  the  world.  What  is  of  consequence  is  that  sound  doc- 
trine should  be  reached  as  early  as  possible,  and  taught  by  as  many  men  as 
possible. 


50 

the  German  wiirde,  sollte,  mochte,  etc. ;  the  theory  that  the 
imperfect  indicative  indicates  duration  of  action  ("  Dauer  ") ;  the 
astounding  theory  that  in  a  sentence  Hke  Livy's  in  I,  3 :  tantum 
opes  creverant .  .  .  ut  ne  morte  quidem  Aeneae  nee  deinde  inter 
muliebrem  tutelam  .  .  .  movere  arma  .  .  .  u/li  alii  accolae  ausi 
sint,  the  perfect  is  used  because  the  statement  fills  Livy,  as  he 
tells  the  story,  with  such  interest  that  the  incident  appears  to  him 
not  to  be  on  the  same  plane  with  the  other  points  of  the  narrative, 
but  to  be,  in  a  word,  remarkable  enough  to  be  brought  into  con- 
nection with  the  actual  present  of  the  writer  ;  by  which  Kluge 
means,  as  clearly  appears  elsewhere,  that  such  perfects  as  ausi 
sint  are  logical  perfects,  perfects  definite,  utterly  failing  to  recog- 
nize, as  many  had  done,  years  ago,  that  these  perfects  are  simply 
subjunctive  aorists  corresponding  precisely  to  independent  indica- 
tive aorists ; '  the  theory  that  the  final  clause  is  developed  out  of 
the  consecutive  clause.  He  errs,  moreover,  in  attributing  meta- 
physical rather  than  concrete  origins  to  the  various  dependent 
subjunctive  constructions.  He  gives  no  proof,  such  as  has  been 
attempted  in  this  paper,  of  the  unsoundness  of  the  prevailing 
doctrine,  nor  does  he  protect  his  theory  from  attack  by  raising  and 
meeting  the  apparent  objections  founded  on  the  common  use  of  the 
imperfect  subjunctive  in  result-clauses  (he  is  quite  wrong  in  the 
matter,  regarding  the  tense  as  always  indicating  the  action  as 
"  laufend  "),  and  the  use  of  the  form  -turns  fuerit  in  subordinated 
conclusions  contrary  to  fact,  etc.,  etc.  Nevertheless,  the  doctrine 
that  in  the  subordinate  sentence  the  speaker's  meaning  alone 
determines  the  tense  is  here  for  the  first  time  stated  sharply  and 
as  covering  the  whole  ground  ;  and  to  have  done  this  is  a  very 
great  service. 

In  no  school  grammar  or  manual  published  in  Germany  since 
then,  however,  has  this  doctrine  been  taught,  so  far  as  my  knowl- 
edge goes — not,  at  any  rate,  in  the  grammars  of  Schottmiiller- 
Putsche  (1884),  Ellendt-Seyfiert  (edition  of  1886),  Kuhner's 
Elementargrammatik  (1884).  Of  the  still  recent  grammars,  etc., 
published  a  little  earlier,  Josupeit's  (1882)  states  to  the  full  the  old 
doctrine  in  these  words :  "  In  the  dependent  subjunctive  the  con- 

^  This  forcing  of  the  meaning  of  the  perfects  in  question  is  as  shortsighted 
as  it  is  extraordinary ;  for  Kluge  fails  to  see  that,  when  he  has  tortured  these 
perfects  into  perfects  definite,  he  still  has  to  confront  and  account  for  the 
fact  that,  as  noticed  on  page  65  of  this  paper,  they  themselves  are  followed  in 
most  cases  by  the  imperfect  and  pluperfect. 


51 

ception  of  time  utterly  vanishes ;  that  conception  is  given  by  the 
governing  verb ;  nothing  remains  to  the  subjunctive  except  the 
conception  of  the  act  as  complete  or  still  lasting  with  reference  to 
the  governing  verb  "  (§83).  Feldmann  (1882)  says  (§69,  3)  that 
"  result-clauses  are  not  subjected  to  the  Sequence  of  Tenses."  Gold- 
bacher  (1883)  says  that  in  all  "innerlich"  dependent  subjunctives 
the  tense  is  under  the  influence  of  the  tensejm  the  governing  sen- 
tence; these  "  innerlich  "  dependent  subjunctives  being  those  that 
are  expressed  as  in  the  mind  of  the  subject  of  the  governing  sen- 
tence, namely,  final  sentences,  sentences  after  antequam,  priusquam, 
dum,  donee,  quoad,  many  relative  sentences,  questions  and  subor- 
dinate verbs  in  the  indirect  discourse ;  in  result-clauses,  however, 
that  tense  is  used  which  would  have  been  used  in  an  independent 
construction,  excepting  that  in  pure  result-clauses  with  ut  the 
imperfect  usually  stands  after  the  perfect.  Here  is  to  be  seen  a 
single  plant  sprung  from  the  seed  planted  by  Lieven  in  1872.  In 
the  grammars  of  Holzweissig  (I  have  before  me  the  edition  of 
1885)  and  Ellendt-Seyffert  (1885  and  1886)  a  richer  growth 
appears,  but  nothing  more  than  in  Lieven's  treatise ;  for  these 
grammars  teach  that  the  rules  of  the  Sequence  of  Tenses  hold, 
but  only  for  "  innerlich  "  dependent  sentences,  while  consecutive, 
causal,  concessive,  and  non-final  relative  sentences  are  not  subject 
to  th^  rule.  In  no  school  grammar  in  Germany,  then,  has  the 
true  doctrine  found  a  lodgment.  Still  there  is  great  significance  in 
this  distinct  narrowing  of  the  field  of  the  operation  of  the  Law. 
Such  things  show  a  drift  of  opinion ;  and  that  drift  is  clearly  away 
from,  not  in  the  direction  of,  faith  in  the  Law  of  the  Sequence. 

Antoine,  in  his  Syntaxe  de  la  Langue  Latine,  1886,  has  got  no 
farther  on  than  Lieven.  In  the  latest  French  grammar,  Reinach's 
Grammaire  Latine,  a  dissatisfaction  with  the  old  way  and  an  un- 
readiness to  break  with  it  are  shown  at  the  same  moment  in  the 
statement  that  "  the  concord  of  tenses  in  Latin  is  subject  to  two 
general  rules,  which  are  rather  logical  tendencies  than  laws  of  the 
language:  i.  If  the  main  verb  refers  to  the  present  or  the  future, 
and  the  dependent  to  the  present  or  the  past,  the  present  or  perfect 
of  the  subjunctive  is  used  in  the  dependent  verb  ;  2.  If  the  main 
verb  refers  to  the  past,  the  imperfect  or  pluperfect  is  used  in  the 
dependent  verb  ";  and  the  same  jarring  of  views  is  seen  in  the 
quoting  of  a  sentence  from  Kluge  and  another  from  Ihm  in  the 
immediate  neighborhood  of  the  statement  that  "  the  other  irregu- 
larities in  the  consecutio  temporum  are  to  be  referred  to  the  struggle 


52 

of  logic  with  grammar,"  a  sentence  not  to  be  reconciled  with  the 
true  doctrine  that  the  Latin  tenses  successfully  tell  their  own  story. 
So,  then,  it  appears  that  no  school  grammar  has  yet  taught  this 
simple  doctrine.  In  one  notable  case,  however,  has  a  refreshing,  even 
if  too  brief,  treatment  appeared,  in  what  may  be  called  a  grammar 
for  specialists.  In  the  grammar  of  Stolz  and  Schmalz,  published 
in  1885,  before  that  of  Reinach,  the  entire  treatment  of  the 
"  sogenannte  consecutio  temporum  "  is  confined,  with  a  noble 
disdain,  to  fifteen  lines  and  two-thirds  ;  and  although  no  proof  is 
given,  and  no  light  thrown  upon  the  apparent  difficulties,  as,  e.  g.y 
the  use  of  the  imperfect  in  result-clauses  (a  matter  especially 
suitable  for  explanation  in  a  grammar  of  such  aims),  yet  it  is 
expressly  laid  down,  in  the  exact  words  of  Kluge's  treatise,  that 
"  a  mechanical  dependence  of  the  tenses  of  the  subordinate  sen- 
tence upon  those  of  the  main  sentence  does  not  exist,  and  that  the 
choice  of  the  tense  in  each  sentence  depends  upon  the  conception 
lying  at  the  bottom  of  it."  After  such  a  note  as  this,  struck  by 
what  may  be  expected  to  prove  an  influential  grammar,  I  have 
entire  faith  in  the  success,  at  no  remote  time,  of  the  true  doctrine, 
to  the  immense  relief  and  profit  of  the  Latin-studying  mind.  This 
true  doctrine  cannot,  however,  be  preached  to  the  people  in  the 
highways.  It  can  reach  them  with  ease  and  conviction  only 
through  their  sacred  books,  the  school  grammars.  And  I  there- 
fore address  my  protest  to  that  body  of  actual  or  potential  makers 
of  those  sacred  books,  the  members  of  the  American  Philological 
Association. 

William  Gardner  Hale. 


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